Pétanque in Guernsey

Pétanque has a small but active competitive scene on Guernsey, the second-largest of the Channel Islands, organized under the Guernsey Petanque Association (GPA). The island competes as its own jurisdiction in CEP (Confédération Européenne de Pétanque) events and maintains a long-running rivalry with neighboring Jersey.

Federation

The Guernsey Petanque Association was created around 2016 as a governing body to let Guernsey compete in CEP and FIPJP events as a jurisdiction in its own right, separate from England. Guernsey appears among the affiliated federations on both FIPJP's Europa Confederation listing and CEP's own members list, and the island has fielded national teams at CEP European Championships. The GPA runs its own site at guernseypetanqueassociation.wordpress.com, though as of this writing that site lists no named office-holders, only a contact form and the two affiliated clubs. Dave Bartram, a Guernsey resident since 1997 and a former Barclays Bank employee of over 35 years, was the driving force behind founding QEII Petanque Club in 2012 and continues to serve as its development officer and coach (contactable separately via qeiipetanqueclub@suremail.gg); a 2020 Guernsey Sports Commission profile described him as the GPA's development officer, but with no current primary source listing GPA office-holders, his present-day GPA title could not be independently reconfirmed at time of writing.

The GPA should not be confused with Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG, an older, separate single club founded in 1984 that predates the GPA by more than three decades. The LBG club is not a renamed version of the association - it continues to operate as one of the GPA's two affiliated member clubs, running its own domestic program including the island's marquee open tournament.

Domestic Scene

The GPA has two affiliated clubs: Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG, which plays at the Petanque Centre in St Andrew's (having moved there in 2000 after playing at the Friquet Flower Centre), and QEII Petanque Club, based on four terrains beside the QEII Marina in St Peter Port. LBG is run by a committee elected annually at the club's AGM in November; a September 2025 Guernsey Press report named David Allen as the club's president at that time, though no record of the subsequent November 2025 AGM could be found to confirm whether he still holds the role. QEII Petanque Club grew out of a lunchtime business league that Dave Bartram helped establish in 2012, working with Jack Honeybill of the Town Centre Partnership and a grant from the HSBC Charitable Trust; the first summer had 12 teams, and the league has since grown to around 50 teams of three or four players, split across a spring season (April to June) and a summer season (July to September), playing weekdays between noon and 2pm. The Guernsey Open, the island's largest tournament, draws players from the UK, France, and Jersey; the 2026 edition was held 4-6 September, with Guernsey taking the Singles, Jersey taking the Doubles, and a mixed Guernsey/Jersey team taking the Triples - full results below. A youth pathway has developed since the 2019 Specsavers Youth Games introduced a cadet club, aimed at eventually producing competitors for Youth World and European events. LBG members also travel off-island for competitions and social trips to Jersey, France, the UK mainland, and the Netherlands.

LBG's 2026 domestic league season produced the following club champions, per the club's own published league tables: Winter Doubles - Giles & Lee (A League), Mark & Linda (B League); Spring Doubles - Giles & Lee; Liberation Day Doubles - Craig & Seb, who beat Lee & Shane 13-12 in the final; Mixed Triples - Seb, Del & Lee; Summer Triples - Dan, Fred & Dave, with a perfect 11-0 record; Singles - Lee; and Vauclusienne - Giles Cleal.

At the 2026 Guernsey Open (4-6 September), local player Dan Le Sauvage won the Singles title, beating fellow Guernsey player Andi Cleal 13-12 in the group stage, then Jersey's Geoffroy Buffetrille and Alan Oliveira in the quarter-final and semi-final, before defeating fellow Guernsey player Iain Haith in the final (Plate winner: Nicky Maindonald). The Doubles went the other way: Jersey's Geoffroy Buffetrille and Andrew Bellamy-Burt successfully defended their title, beating Guernsey pairs Shane Brehaut & Keith Priaulx (quarter-final) and Giles Cleal & Lee Holberry (semi-final) before winning an all-Jersey final 13-11 against Alan Oliveira & Callum Stewart; Giles Cleal and Lee Holberry were named best Guernsey team for the third year running (Plate winners: Trevor and Katrina Holden of Jersey). The Triples was won by a mixed team of Gary Cowburn, Wendy Ritzema, and local player Keith Priaulx (Plate winners: Ross Payne, Jake Romeril, and Alan Oliveira).

International Results

Guernsey's best-known fixture is the Victor Hugo Inter-Island Trophy, an annual inter-insular match against Jersey contested since 1987 (a 2020 interview with GPA development officer Dave Bartram put the run at "27 years," suggesting the fixture's exact cadence has shifted over time), alternating hosts between the two islands across 12 singles, 12 doubles, and 4 triples games. Jersey has won the large majority of editions to date, including a 2025 edition - delayed into the summer of 2026 "as we continued to catch up from several years of disrupted travel," per Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG's own report - that Jersey won comfortably, though Guernsey remained in contention going into the final round of Triples; Craig was Guernsey's most successful player with three wins, and Bob beat Jersey's Andy Bellamy-Burt in the Singles. Unlike Jersey, Guernsey does not take part in the Home Nations Championship alongside England, Scotland, and Wales.

At the 5th CEP European Championship (Singles & Doubles), held in Lorca, Spain, 18-21 June 2026 with 33 teams entered, a Guernsey men's doubles pair - Craig Allen and Seb Renaud, coached by Peter Marland - beat Ireland 13-12, Croatia 13-10, lost to France 13-0 and Germany 13-7, then beat England 13-12 in a last-ends thriller to finish 11th in qualifying and reach the main round of 16, where they lost 13-4 to the Netherlands; their win over England was described by the island's own club coverage as the best result a Guernsey team has ever achieved at this level. In the same championship week, a separate Guernsey ladies team - Del Renaud and Sue Marland, coached by Giles Cleal - beat a strong Portugal side in the knockout stages of the accompanying Nations League team event before losing a close 13-10 quarter-final against England. Guernsey also competes at the individual level in CEP European Championships from time to time, though full historical results were not available to us.

National Competition Calendar

Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG, the island's founding club (see Domestic Scene above), publishes its own official yearly calendar on its website. The 2026 edition lists the following fixtures.

Domestic 2026 fixtures (Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG):

Winter Doubles: weekly A and B league rounds from 7 January through 18 February.
Mixed Triples: weekly rounds from 25 February through 1 April.
Inter Insular: 3 October 2026, hosted in Guernsey - the island-vs-island fixture against Jersey. This date has now passed, but no Guernsey- or Jersey-sourced report of the 2026 result could be found at time of writing. See the Victor Hugo Inter-Island Trophy in International Results above for the match's history, including the delayed 2025 edition played in summer 2026.
Spring Doubles: weekly A and B league rounds from 8 April through 27 May, alongside two named one-off trophies on the same calendar - the Liberation Day Doubles (16 April, named for the island's 9 May Liberation Day public holiday) and the John Mahy Trophy (25 May, a straight knockout doubles competition) - plus the single-day Sarnia Trefoil (11 May, named for Sarnia, the island's Roman-era name) for the club's leading players.
Summer Triples: weekly rounds from 3 June through 22 July.
Singles: weekly rounds from 29 July through 2 September, immediately preceding the Guernsey Open (see Domestic Scene above).
Mixed Doubles: weekly rounds from early September through late October.
Vauclusienne: a run of rounds from 4 November through 23 December, played in the Vauclusienne format - six boules per team of one, two, or three players (see this site's tournament formats guide) - reserved, per the club's own reporting, for "the best players/teams" in what it calls "the ultimate test of placing, shooting, tactics and playing under pressure."

Results across these leagues feed into the club's own Green's Grand Prix, a rolling points table crowning an overall club champion for the year.

International Calendar

The same calendar also marks several off-island fixtures, alongside the Guernsey Open and the CEP European Championship results already covered above:

Carrefour Open, 2-4 May 2026, hosted in Jersey - almost certainly by Jersey's Carrefour Club at Grouville, one of that island's own affiliated clubs. Although this date has passed, no Guernsey-sourced report of the 2026 edition's results could be found at time of writing.
Liberation Open Jersey, 25-27 July 2026 - very likely hosted by Jersey's Liberation Pétanque Club, based at the Weighbridge Gardens in St Helier. As with the Carrefour Open, this date has passed but no 2026 results report has surfaced yet.
CEP European Cup (EuroCup) for Clubs, 5-8 November 2026, Sin-le-Noble, France - independently cross-checked against this site's own Jersey country profile, which confirms Liberation Pétanque Club is set to represent Jersey at the same 2026 EuroCup in Sin-le-Noble, and against this site's Serbia country profile, which separately sources the "CEP 28th European Cup" dates of 5-8 November 2026 in Sin-le-Noble from the Bocce Federation of Serbia's own calendar - a three-way match across independent sources. Guernsey Club De Petanque LBG has said it plans to send a team of six, subject to availability and costs.

The calendar additionally blocks out the week of the 5th CEP European Championship (Singles & Doubles) in Lorca, Spain (18-21 June), already covered in full in International Results above.