The Zanesfield Pétanque Club is celebrating 15 years of existence
ZANESFIELD – I played – and lost – my first game of pétanque Sunday.
The agents of my defeat were Lucy and Ruby, ages 16 and 14, respectively. True, they have played pétanque pretty much all their lives, their father being Bo Johns, who was the driving force behind establishing the Zanesfield Pétanque Club at Hall-Fawcett Park, bringing the ancient game to the upper reaches of the Mad River Valley in 2010. But even with Bo as my partner, the girls whooped us but good, Bo’s game no doubt hampered by being teamed with yours truly, an ignorant and clueless rookie.
As a game, pétanque (pronounced pee-TONK) dates back, in one form or another, at least 2,000 years, and while it is rarely played here in the States, pétanque is a big deal in Western Europe. France alone has over 300,000 players who are pétanque club members, and the sport now is catching fire in the Far East.
Like any other sport, pétanque has its own lingo and idiom. Football is played on a field, soccer has a pitch, the action in baseball occurs on a diamond, and basketball is played on a court. Pétanque takes place on a “terrain”, which is generally comprised of gravel, but unlike similar sports such as bocce or lawn bowling, pétanque needs no special court or surface. As noted, gravel often mixed with small rocks are preferred for a terrain, but one can scare up a game of pétanque on pebbles, dirt, or even grass for that matter. And except in competitions and tournaments, the terrain has no maximum specified size requirements. When the courts at the Zanesfield Pétanque Club (ZPC) are full, players often make use of the gravel parking lot to get in a game to two. All that is needed to play pétanque is a flat piece of land, six boules (pronounced “bools”) per team and a small ball called a jack (pronounced “jack”). That’s about it.
The boules (a French word for balls) are roughly the size of a baseball, but are quite a bit heavier, most of them being made out of stainless or carbonized steel and weighing in at just over one-and-a-half pounds, give or take. Pétanque is most often played by teams comprised of two or three players. Once the terrain is established (again, for the casual player, this could be anywhere from your backyard to grandma’s gravel driveway), a coin toss determines who gets to place the jack and take the first throw.
To start the game, a player who wins the toss must stand on the terrain in circle that should be from 18 to 20-inches in diameter (appropriately-sized plastic hoops are generally used by regulars, but there is nothing wrong with using the toe of a shoe to draw the circle) and toss the jack between 6 and 10 meters (about 20 to 32 feet) in which ever direction they please and as the terrain allows. After that, each throw for that inning, or “end” as it’s called in pétanque, must be made from inside that same circle with both feet on the ground. The idea is to get more of your boules closer to the jack than your opponents do after all 12 balls are thrown. A team receives one point for each of their boules that are closer to the jack than any of their opponents’ boules, meaning that one team will score at least one point – and as many as six points – for each “end”, with the other team getting a goose egg for that turn. The next round starts when the team that scored in the last “end” tosses the jack, again from within an 18-20 inch circle around where the jack was last resting and play continues from there. The first team to score 13 points wins.
As one soon learns, strategy and fancy tosses play a big part in the game. Experienced players at the ZPC are just as likely to try use their shots to knock their opponent’s well-placed boules – or the jack itself – well into Monroe Township rather than concede a point. After getting my beatdown from Lucy and Ruby, I settled in at the ZPC as some of the club members showed up for their regular Sunday afternoon games. Most regulars have their own equipment, but Johns has made sure that the ZPC clubhouse is chock full of loaners (boules, jacks, and hoops) that are free for all to use.
Unlike my first game, where the Johns family and I eyeballed distances between the boules and the jack, those who play on a regular basis take the matter of distance much more seriously to the extent that many players carry tape measures to get accurate results as to which boule is closer to the jack than another. Regulars are also a quite picky about what constitutes “between 6 and 10 meters” as far as throwing the jack is concerned. I watched, with some amusement, as the experienced players occasionally quibbled over the distance the jack was thrown, this before having to step off the distance as no one present was in possession of a 10-meter tape measure.
Doug Boes of Amelia Island, FL was in attendance Sunday, as he always stops by the ZPC for a game or two when he is in Ohio on business (“This is the Field of Dreams of pétanque,” Boes said), as was Logan County’s own Larry (“They call me Dead Eye”) Niswonger, 88-years-old and still out there, tossing boules and casting a jaundiced eye on close calls.
While there is no specified maximum size for a terrain in pétanque, which can make the parking lot games quite interesting, there obviously has to be minimum size requirements for the terrain.
Johns put in the first court in 2010, but has since has put in a 48×48-foot court, which can be cordoned off using string to make two lanes that are 48×24 feet or even four lanes that are 48×12 feet, all of which is plenty of room to toss the jack 6 to 10 meters down range and get a game started.
The courts at the ZPC also features lights, so hardcore players can get in a game at night.
The ZPC is a 501(c)3 organization and Johns was proud to say that every piece of equipment – from jacks to the picnic tables and umbrellas to the gravel – were purchased with donations.
There is no charge for using the terrain and, as noted, the ZPC has a clubhouse stuffed with equipment for beginners on the house, with Johns and other members offering lessons – again free of charge – to those who wish to learn the game.
The ZPC members meet for games Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. from April through October, but the courts are open to all every day. Interested parties can contact the ZPC at zanesfieldpetanque@gmail.com with questions or to perhaps set up an outing and one may follow the Zanesfield Pétanque Club on Facebook and Instagram.
On a personal note, I’m emailing the ZPC to get Lucy and Ruby back on the terrain at Hall-Fawcett Park just as soon as possible.
I demand a rematch.
