WILTON Bridge Petanque Club have been making the most of the lovely weather by inviting teams to come and play friendlies at Ross Sports Centre.

Clubs from Abergavenny, Monkstone (Cardiff) and Bath have already taken advantage of Wilton’s excellent pistes and facilities, with further visits from Caerleon and Cardiff also in the diary, and Wilton members already looking forward to return fixtures later in the summer.

There are regular opportunities for members to enjoy social pétanque throughout the year, with internal club conpetitions for the more competitive.

Club sessions are held on Monday and Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning, and quizzes, skittles and barbecues are also arranged for more enjoyment off the pistes.

There’s also an opportunity for more people to try out the game at an open afternoon at Ross Sports Centre at 2pm on Thursday, May 29, where boules, coaching and encouragement will all be provided, with all welcome.

The club opened in April 2021, and is registered and insured with Petanque England, the national governing body for the sport.

It has 11 all-weather gravel pistes which allow year-round play in the attractive sportsground setting, with toilets and other facilities in the centre nearby.

Petanque – pronounced pay-tank and also known as boules – is a favourite national pastime in France and can be enjoyed by all abilities.

A target ball, called a cochonnet or “coch”, is thrown down the piste first. Then the players compete to throw their boules nearest to the coch and score points towards a total of 13.

Not many sports clubs have a piece of architecture as their logo, but Wilton Bridge does.

Located just 100m from the historic River Wye crossing, they have adopted its unusual, vertical sundial as their logo, which was added to the 425-year-old bridge in the early 18th century.