Mendham and Withersdale

Following the completion of their successful second season, the Suffolk Coastal Petanque League are already setting their sights on the 2010 season. Having started in 2008 with 9 teams, which then rose to 17 in 2009, the sport is benefitting from a revival in interest and is currently one of the 5 fastest growing sports in the country.

The sport itself has virtually no age or gender restrictions and people normally take around 10 to 15 minutes to be shown the basics of the game. Several factors help in making it a great leisure activity to be involved with, especially that you do not have to be of Olympian-athletic ability to play and also, in these difficult economic times, it is an incredibly inexpensive pastime.

Many of our new teams manage to find and persuade their local pubs and such like to temporarily give up a section of a gravelled car park or similar, which can make a suitable playing surface and therefore avoid the need to build a purpose-made playing area or ‘piste’ as we call it. Obviously if interest and funds allow, we prefer a ‘proper’ piste but realise that this is not always possible, and basically our principles are that we just want to get as many people playing in a variety of locations.

Our league itself allows players to enter in teams of a minimum of 4 players, up to a maximum of 8 and the registration fee is a ‘credit-busting’ £12 per team for the entire season. Matches are played approximately once every 3 weeks, starting in April and culminating in our Grand Finals during the final week of September. Another innovation of our league is that leagues are based upon geographical location rather than ability and are limited to a maximum of 6 teams per division. This means a team will have, at the most, 5 home and 5 away matches to play over a 6 month period. This allows for matches being re-arranged easily to avoid holidays etc and teams are provided with all the other teams contact details at the start of the season to allow easy communication between captains.

Late Sunday mornings are the preferred ‘kick-off’ times, and with matches lasting around 90 minutes to complete, venues are then usually open by 12 o’clock, allowing after-match refreshments and the chance for the socialising aspect of our sport.

Teams can be made up of family members, social friends, pubs and club teams or even teams that we manage to ‘mould together’ from isolated persons who just want to get involved, such as the Deben Vikings team did in 2009, where we got 6 strangers together playing on the Council funded piste at Woodbridge. So much did they enjoy their first season, they were one of the first teams to signal their commitment for the fast approaching 2010 league programme.

If you are at all interested, please don’t hesitate in contacting the League Co-Ordinator, Mr Simon Fletcher at 18 Melville Road, Ipswich, IP4 1PN or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Registration closes at the end of February 2010, so please, please get in touch.

After several years of planning for a new community building to replace the aging village hall in Withersdale Street and the long gone village hall in Mendham, a sub-committee of the villages' Community Council developed a Feasibility Study for a new village hall in 1995.  A public meeting in May of that year voted in favour of the new hall being in Withersdale Street.  Fundraising commenced and grants from the Parish Council, Community Council, Village Hall Committee and the Youth & Football Club enabled the playing field in Withersdale Street and a building plot to the east to be purchased in 2000. In September 2001 a Trust Deed brought a Charity called Mendham and Withersdale Village Hall into existence as Management Trustees for the new hall, Mendham Parish Council being Custodian Trustees for the land and proposed new property.  Work then commenced on raising funds for construction. 

We are open!  At long, long last we hear you say.  It has been a slog and a few people doubted we would ever succeed, but we have made it!!!  Many, many thanks are due to a great number of supporters, far too numerous to be listed here.  If you helped in any way, however small, please consider yourself thanked.  We plan to have our formal opening celebration in early Spring 2010 and details will appear in the January edition of Five Alive.

Meanwhile the new hall is open for business. Contact me, Julie Herbert, the Hall Manager on 01379 588202 or 07967 480484 and I will help with information and take your bookings. Now it’s here, why not use it!