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 and can be contacted via gpa@suremail.gg. Dave Bartram, a Guernsey resident since 1997 and a former Barclays Bank employee of over 35 years, is confirmed as President of the GPA; he is also the driving force behind QEII Petanque Club, where he acts as development officer and coach (contactable separately via qeiipetanqueclub@suremail.gg).

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; specific office-holder names were not available from primary sources at the time of writing. 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 is scheduled for 4-6 September. 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.

International Results

Guernsey's best-known fixture is the Victor Hugo Inter-Island Trophy, an annual inter-insular match against Jersey contested every year since 1987, 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. Unlike Jersey, Guernsey does not take part in the Home Nations Championship alongside England, Scotland, and Wales.

At the 3rd CEP European Championship (Doubles), held in Lorca, Spain, 18-21 June 2026 with 33 teams entered, a Guernsey men's doubles pair beat England 13-12, 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 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: 28 March - the club's own calendar marks this date for the island-vs-island fixture against Jersey; see the Victor Hugo Inter-Island Trophy in International Results above for the match's full history.
• 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.
• Liberation Open Jersey, 25-27 July 2026 - very likely hosted by Jersey's Liberation Pétanque Club, based at the Weighbridge Gardens in St Helier.
• 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.

The calendar additionally blocks out the week of the 3rd CEP European Championship (Doubles) in Lorca, Spain (18-21 June), already covered in full in International Results above.