Parcent win the European Pilota Championships

The delightful village of Parcent which is looked over by the well know and grand 'Col de Rates' mountain has a surprising sporting tale to tell.

Their '1st Pilota Team' has achieved heights far beyond that one would expect from a village whose population is only around one thousand residents.

Pilota is a game played in the streets using only the hand with a small very hardball. The coordination needed to play this game is way above that required to play either tennis, squash or padel.

The 'European Pilota Finals' were played on Saturday and Sunday, October 11 and 12 in Italy this year.

Teams that qualified to play were from France 1 team, Italy 2 teams, Belgium 2 teams, Northen Spain 1 team and Alicante, Valencia had 3 teams from Benidorm, Relleu and Parcent.

On Saturday we had to win two matches in the quarter finals to qualify for the finals on Sunday.

In the morning we played Salvaia from Italy, then later in the afternoon we drew against Maubeuge from France.

Parcent team soon got used to the conditions and played very well winning both matches convincingly. That put them into the semifinals on Sunday morning against Thieulan.

That was a tough match because it was knock out competition and left only the four most successful teams .

Parcent team again kept their cool in a very passionate match and came out winning 63, so they were through to the final to be played at 16.00 later that afternoon.

Benidorm won their semi match also, so two local Spanish teams were in the play offs for the final.

The championships took place in the pleasant town of Monticiano in Tuscani (Italy).

Pilota is played in many villages in the area so there was a lot of interest in the games.

A large crowd left the local bars and gathered around the courts the whistle blew to start the first serve.

Scoring is very similar to tennis, but when you get to deuce the next one to score a point wins the match.

Benidorm's young team were very fit. The match was even for the first six sets so it was 3-3.

No half timers are played nor any times taken into account.

Parcent’s experience then took over and they won the next three sets and were out right winners by 6-3.

A very nice and organised presentation by the authorities of Monticiano followed.

Benidorm team took second place and also received a nice trophy.

Then our village team Parcent were presented with the winning trophy making them “The Champions of Europe”

It is not easy for me to describe the emotion I saw in the team as each one in turn took the cup and raised it to their own personal level of pride.

Early on Monday morning we set off in a convoy of hired cars with the Sat Navs working well for Bolonia Airport to catch the plane to Valencia.

The “Jungle Drums” had worked well because when we arrived back at Parcent many of the locals were waiting to greet us and listened eagerly to our news of good fortune from Italy.