What else is there better to do on a wet and cold Saturday afternoon than get off the couch and head down to the Campania Sports and Social Club with a group of people to experience playing one of the world’s oldest sports.
Q..... What is the world’s oldest sport known to man? A..... Wrestling/archery.
Well I’m glad we didn’t engage in either of those 2 activities as they were not available on the night.
We had 38 CCSA club members turn up to play bocce, with some turning up early..... like really early around 2pm, but most of them on time at 4pm as per club newsletter information except for the organiser.
Bocce was first discovered on cave paintings in France around 1500BC based around the throwing of a rock towards a target, and since simple things amuse simple minds and no skills required well within most attending I thought we should be right on the night.
It was the Egyptians who refined the rock to a round, polished surface so it could roll a little better and the bocce ball set was found inside the tombs of Pharoahs. May I say, made little difference to some of us on the night with poor performances and needing lots of practice before the next court outing. The games popularity soon spread around the globe gaining huge followings and wasn’t until 600BC the game showed up in Europe by the Greeks, then passed on to the Roman Empire.
Did you know Bocce the game was prohibited in Europe around 1319AD because it was causing chaos in the streets and classed as a menace, together with distracting from more traditional war associated games like archery.

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 Did you know Bocce was in the first ever summer Olympic Games of 1896?
Now that’s enough for bocce history.
After some initial instructions by the little General Genaro and his group of Bocce Lieutenants, the members were divided into two groups and drawn to play partners.
All was going well considering our understanding of ItalioEnglish but we all knew the rules...............RIGHT.
Still can’t believe how much walking up and down this court we had to do to meet the rules.
Regardless the scoring was spot on.
We played 8 rounds of end to end confusion, but uncovered some naturally talented rock throwing members. It was intense if you were on the side lines but even more intense on the courts as partners soon started to blame one another.
Some of us started to shine with gifted scoring, mainly Peter and Chris - 18, Wayne and Sue - 13, AJ and Mel - 11.
Closely followed by the dark horse couple of Rob and Karen -10. It was Karen’s finess and cool judgement versus Robs MACK truck approach which worked well initially but fell short after running out of puff, the wheels fell off and the team didn’t recover.
Dinner was a selection of traditional Italian cuisine, including pasta, pizza and my favourite Parmigana which were all handmade by the volunteers in their kitchen and washed down easily with a selection of Serafino and Maglieri wines.

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Refuelled and re-energised the 4 finalists played out the pressure points, all showed fighting spirits yet galant in defeat but in the end crowning Peter and Chris as the inaugural CCSA Bocce champions for 2023. Bad luck Wayne and Sue but maybe next year if you practice in the backyard with the family and can go one better.
They say cash is king and thanks to the Campania club, offering up the court hire for free meant the prize pool of $160 was on offer and split between the top 3 finishers.....YES!!!! WINNERS WERE GRINNERS
We as a club did offer a donation of $100 on the night thanks to the CCSA committee as gratitude towards their club endorsed charity......one good deed deserves another.
I would like to thank everyone who attended, and I hope they enjoyed a different outing for the club ,with the comments later in the night suggesting making this an annual event to encourage some more friendly rivalry and another couple as CCSA Bocce champions!
So all I can say for now is practice makes perfect, go forth and concur one of the world’s oldest sports . Hope to see you all again, balls in hand. 

Serge