Penny Park – Lithgow
As far as the Lithgow team was concerned, the highlight of this competition was the pre-comp visit from the Korean ‘Join’ team. We had such fun hosting them in the mountains and then down at Lithgow. They were so generous in sharing their Gateball expertise and demonstrating play that is consummate in both strategy and execution. We did not perform as well as we can in this competition, but we all have happy memories of friendships made and rekindled and share in John’s relief that, after all the hard work, the competition was a huge success. Relaxed and refocussed, we will be back!
Julia Vickers – Southport
A great weekend was had by both Southport Teams at the National Gateball Championships held at Cairnlea Victoria. Southport White was especially excited winning their first six games in Block A. This included winning against both International teams in the block – South Korea (Join) and China (Hu Nan). Unfortunately, we then lost the final two games and ended up in coming fourth in the block. Although Southport Red did not do so well in block B, they had good close games. We all play each other at the Club so really it is great for all Southport gateballers to have done so well.
What a great experience we all had playing local, state, national and international competitors in such good facilities. We all look forward to meeting again in 2021.
Helen Chalmers – Hunter Allsorts
Just writing to say a big thank you to the organisers for the AGC in Cairnlea. The Hunter Allsorts thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were happy with most of their play. The weather was absolutely awful but no one can do anything about that. Thank you to everyone for doing a great job.
I along with the rest of the Pine Rivers team had a great time (except for the bloody weather). The competition was played in a friendly although competitive manner. We as a small gateball club learnt a lot about strategy during the competition and I personally learnt that captaining a side is not as easy as I though it was ! but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and can’t wait to have another go.
The Korean Join team had a great experience in Australia.
Our team had a number of incidents before this competition. In August, one player was absent, making it difficult to find a replacement. And I only had two exercises with the new member. In addition, one week before departure, one of our members was admitted to the hospital, and our team had to make a strategic decision. He was an important part of my team, so I and my team even thought about giving up on Australia.
This was because it was hard to travel to Australia with two members who had been practising for one year. In fact, my team had a lot of conflict before leaving the country a week before the departure. But for a month-long schedule with John Park, I decided to travel to Australia.
All team played well….and this tournament was good
As one third of the team called the Capricornians, Peter and RoseAnne who are members of the Gacemere Croquet Club were thrilled to be part of the experience of the Australian Gateball Championships recently held in Melbourne. The experience gained at these Championships is invaluable, with forward thinking and strategies which can only be seen at an event such as this. The teams from Korea and China and indeed all the teams were first class and we feel that the knowledge gained from exposure to such players will benefit us not only as team members, but in doubles matches. As always the friendliness and comradeship throughout the Gateball community is tremendous and as first timers to this event, we were blown away by the way in which we were received. Thank you to all those involved in the organisation of such a successful event.
Peter Kajewski and RoseAnne Mathewson.