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In May 2017, Derek and Sheila Appleton from Herne Bay Boccia Club began demonstrating the game at Trinity Resource Centre to a class of elderly folk on behalf on Ageless Thanet. The class ran for ten weeks, after which the sessions were run by four volunteers from the original group. From these four, the group grew to twenty by the year end.

Some of the players wanted to take the game seriously, so the current chairman took a course in refereeing with Boccia England, and the idea of a competitive club began to take shape. 

On May 18th 2018, Thanet Thunderers, a proud member club of Boccia England held its first session and has never looked back. Our teams are competing in the Kent League and in National competitions and we are one of the founding members of Boccia Kent, of which Terry Fearn is also chairman.

We are now moving our sessions from our original venue at Trinity Resource Centre, to the Sports Hall at Hartsdown Leisure Centre in Margate.

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For Terry Fearn and Jackie Potts, it was another weekend refereeing at a national competition in Nottingham, except that the Saturday competition concluded with Boccia England's AGM, followed by an awards ceremony and a buffet.

The man charged with announcing the winners of the various categories was Chris Ratcliffe, the CEO of Boccia England. "And the winner of "Club of the Year 2019-20 is...Thanet Thunderers Boccia Club". Well, that was a surprise! Considering our short history, it's an amazing tribute to the hard-working committee and the sustained attempts to make the game affordable and accessible to all, and make it fun.

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