FITNESS:Twice a week, Bushy Park in Dublin comes alive with the gentle clonk of steel boules, as the pétanque club gathers to play a simple, low-cost game that different generations can enjoy together
‘SHE IGNORED ME,’ says Pierre Di Pizzo, who met his future wife Breffney, a Terenure native, in Tahiti when they both worked cruise ships in the Caribbean. Breffney’s strategy worked – France captured Terenure back in 1986. Now their battleground is Bushy Park, where they play pétanque with their children, Jack (14) and Emily (13), every Saturday.
Pétanque is an old Gallic term meaning “feet together”, and the game was derived from boules in 1907, when a player named Jules Lenoir, who suffered with rheumatism, requested that he be allowed throw his boules from a standing position, rather than taking steps and then throwing. Another strategist, King Henry VIII, is said to have banned his archers from playing boules as it was too distracting.
And indeed, it is very relaxed at the Bushy Park piste (the gravelly pen where the game is played). It’s a quiet space where the only sounds are tennis balls being batted back and forth on the nearby courts, the clonk of the steel boules, and the low chatter of the pétanque players.
Saturdays can be a bit of a war zone in many households, bottle bank and dry-cleaning tasks wrestling with hobbies and other worthy activities. Breffney Di Pizzo’s game plan is to drop the boys at the park in the morning and take off to do some messages, or she might go next door to the tennis court and have a knockabout with daughter Emily, or go swimming.
Pétanque is easy to get the gist of and to play at a basic level, and it can be played with just two people or with two teams of up to three. The Bushy Park pétanque players are happy to show interested passersby how to play. In brief, a marker called a jack is thrown, then one of the players walks or measures six to 10m from the jack and makes a circle, and then the players must throw the boules towards the jack while standing in the circle. The object is to end up with your boule closer to the jack than your opponent can manage; Pierre describes this as “capturing the castle”, using the boules as an army. Throws include “pointing” (aiming to land near the jack) or “shooting” (trying to knock your opponent’s boule out of its position near the jack).
Pierre shows me one of his son Jack’s boules. “Jack,” it says, the engraving ensuring there’ll be no mix-up on the piste. The steel balls have a medieval look about them, although boules would originally have been played with wooden balls. Although Jack is just 14, he is competing in pétanque internationally. It’s not the most physical game in the world, the senior Di Pizzo admits, but “there is no other game where grandparents and grandchildren can play together. Well, maybe golf, but this is more accessible than golf.” In fact, Jack plays alongside a French man named Richard Elvin, who already has 23 world championships behind him. There are only 22 players in Ireland licenced to compete internationally. In France there are 375,000 licenced players, and about 17 million people play casually.
Breffney explains that, in Bushy Park at least, pétanque is particularly popular with French chefs. When I joined the Di Pizzos there, I was introduced to an assortment of players: John O’Grady, who belongs to Bray Pétanque Club; his wife Liz; Elvin from France; and Ramon from Mauritius. Ramon has been in Ireland six months, and started playing in Bushy Park just three months ago. He says he was surprised to happen on it in Ireland, but “in Mauritius there is a game in every little space and courtyard. For me it’s a great way to meet friends without going to the pub.”
It is also low-cost – the only outlay is for a set of boules – and a great excuse for fresh air. The park’s pétanque players are out all year round, and O’Grady says “you’d be surprised how little the weather actually interferes, and we have the trees for shelter.”
The Cost of Playing the Game
Bushy Park piste is a public ground and free for all to use. However if people wish to join a fully insured club, the annual membership for Park Pétanque Club is €24. Members of the Park Pétanque Club can be found training and playing games every Saturday from 2pm (a good time for beginners to go along) and every Tuesday from 6pm (in late spring, summer and early autumn, weather permitting). Contact Pierre Di Pizzo on 087-2078410 for further information. The qualifier for the 2010 Celtic Challenge takes place in Bushy Park on September 12th.
The Irish Pétanque Association is the national organisation for the game in Ireland (visit www.irishpetanque.org for details of clubs in Cork, Tipperary, Galway, Sligo, Down, Dublin and Wicklow) or how to build a piste and set up your own club. More information on the European Federation website (www.cep-petanque.com) and the International Federation of Pétanque and Provençal Games (www.fipjp.com).
Marks and Spencer sell a beginner’s set of boules (including a jack and measuring cord) in their Summer at Home catalogue (ref T213935) for £19.50 (about €23). You can order a set at www.marksandspencer.com, in-store or by phone. You can also order a set of boules on www.nimblefingers.ie for €19.99. Competition-level boules are more expensive, but start at about €50 for beginner competitors and junior boules, www.laboulenoire.com