Surprise defeat for Finland - 6th International Petanque

It is strange sometimes how coincidences work - It was only a week or so ago that we reported on the 5th Barga International Petanque Competition (article here ) and in that article it was mentioned that unfortunately for the Barga Pétanque players, the Finnish contingent stopped their annual pilgrimage to Barga and enthusiasm for the game waned amongst the local athletes.

Only seven days later, who should turn up, out of the blue and completely unexpected two members of the Finnish team - the poet Jukka Itkonen (article here) and his wife Inga who started this whole story of petanque in Barga all those years ago. Three teams were quickly put together and the sixth International Petanque Competition was on.

Hamish Moore | Gillian Hart | Martine Robertson - Representing Scotland

Jukka Itkonen | Inga Itkonen - Flying the Flag for Finland

Frank Viviano | Keane - The Barga Vecchia’s

The first problem to solve was where to actually play as the normal Petanque playing area was occupied by football players preparing for the evening Annual Cancellone Football Match. When this has happened in the past or when the playing area was too waterlogged after heavy rainfall, normally the secondary Petanque playing area would be used - the car park in front of the Middle School but that too was occupied, this time by many parked cars so the sixth International Petanque Competition was held below Barga Vecchia in amongst some of the caravans and mobile homes on the short stay car park. Not an ideal pitch as was pointed out on numerous occasions during the match by members of the Scottish and Finnish teams. Hamish Moore was heard to mutter under his breath more than once that “this is all random - no skill whatsoever” It is still unclear if he was referring to random trajectories caused by a rough pitch or random skill levels considering the final score left something to be desired from the team representing Scotland - Barga 13, Finland 4, Scotland 2

The firm favourites Finland started well but faltered almost immediately and even the strenuous verbal gymnastics and last-minute team changes from 50% of the Finnish squad could not stop the team representing Barga - Viviano and Keane from a runaway victory.

Special mention should be made of two members of the team representing Scotland - Gillian Hart and Martine Robertson who although playing their first ever International Petanque Competition here in Barga where not hazed or fazed by the occasion or the multilingual heckling from some of the other athletes and did in fact have the clearness of mind to bring up on a couple of occasions obvious rule infractions from other teams. They brought a welcome, honest and refreshing lightness to a game which sometimes, as we all know, can sometimes dip into heavy polemic as the pressure to get a result mounts.

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