Alencon Exchange 2008

Basingstoke Table Tennis celebrated the 40^th year of a sporting exchange with Basingstoke’s twin town Alencon by welcoming 9 players from the Alencon Table tennis Club L’Etoile Alenconaisse for a weekend of sport and hospitality.

The 2 day and 3 night visit was rounded off with a visit from the Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane Cllr Warwick Lovegrove at an evening of lawn bowls at the Loddon Vale Indoor Lawn bowling club. Cllr Lovegrove was greeted by the organiser of the exchange Sean Pickin, who explained the nature and history of this event which is a legacy of the Festival of Sports that was in it’s heyday throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. Cllr Lovegrove was introduced to an organiser from the Alencon club, Laurent Gautier and President of L’Etoile Alenconaisse Phillipe Dugrand and later to Gene Palaczky who was one of the representatives from Basingstoke that travelled to Alencon for the first meeting in 1969.Phillipe Devaux has been involved in the event since 1972 and Basingstoke's Alan Palaczky has integral in the exchange from the mid 70’s.Laurent Gautier expressed Alencon’s wishes for a gradual drive between the two towns to revive the Festival of Sports which over the years has seen 31 different sports participate such as Rugby, Athletics, Swimming, Cycling, Basketball, Gymnastics, Fencing, Karate ,Archery, Bridge and Fishing etc. In 1978 the French sent over 180 sportsmen and women and in 1983 nearly 300 competitors ventured over to Alencon in a competition covering 13 events.

Cllr Lovegrove was also introduced to Terry Heath and other members of the Loddon Vale bowling club who kindly hosted the evenings bowling and gave coaching to the Mayor and the table tennis players. The Mayor soon got the hang of the bowling and witnessed Basingstoke winning a sociable game against Alencon in a three team event. The table tennis was narrowly won by Basingstoke despite the first team losing 5 sets to 4. Arnaud Riviere was star for the Alencon team winning all his three games and beating Tim Pang and Alan Palaczky in 5 close sets. Basingstoke’s B team won 7-2 with 4 matches going to the wire and the hero’s were Celia Hooker and Sarah Whithorn who won all the games. Young Louis Webb lead the C team to a narrow 5-4 victory by beating Sebastien Dugrand in 4 sets in the last game of the match.

Over the weekend the friends from Alencon were treated to a sightseeing trip to London and Winchester as well as the indoor lawn bowls and as always were hosted in the homes of their Basingstoke counterparts. Once again Basingstoke look forward to next may for the 41^st twinning event in Alencon. When Alencon left for the trip to Dover l’annee prochaine could be heard several times over.