A few years ago on a previous visit to Marseille, I found a copy of a book Les fadas de le pétanque (“Crazy about petanque”) which tells the purportedly true story of a gang of con artists who swindled players out of millions of ancient francs, playing fixed games for money. The story is also told in volume 2 of Otello’s classic book Les Histoires Humoristiques de la Pétanque.
It wasn’t simply a case of allowing players to win the first couple of games before upping the stakes. Instead, there was a much more elaborate ‘sting’ in which members of the gang would pose as property developers, looking to build new projects and seeking greedy but gullible partners for their schemes with the promise of easy riches. The boss was an old man who loved playing boules and didn’t mind the fact that he lost money hand over fist playing. Players would be invited to play with the boss and suddenly find they’ve somehow lost!
I’d often wondered if it all really did happen or if it was just fiction. I asked one of the elderly spectators and he assured me it was true and that if I searched the archives of the local press from the 1960s, I’d find the stories. I went to the largest regional paper, La Provence, thinking it would take me all week searching to find anything. I was amazed that one of the archivists knew the story and took me straight to a folder with all the cuttings! The story was true. Otello’s book gives the dates of the gang’s eventual trial and we also found these editions with the newspaper’s court reports.
Many years ago there was no way of getting your pictures online unless you knew someone with a homepage. Or you mailed them to petanque.org, and we'd put it on the web for you. But nowadays nobody does this thing anymore, there are thousands of ways to get your images online, and our pictures-section is about as dry as the sahara. So we have had to make some changes
Lars Refn was one of the founders of the Copenhagen Petanque Club in Denmark. He is also an illustrator, and has produces a vast number of t-shirts with petanque as the theme over the years.
A positive newsflash fron Chiltern - the young ones have started playing petanque!
We often get questions about when you are to old to play petanque. Some say 90, some 100 and some 120..
A report from Tim Truluck in Charente, France.
Petanque.org integrates with flickrPetanque.org is 10 years old! Illegal Petanque ExposedA Petanque calendar for 2008Hot club petanqe and Le mondial la marseillaise a petanque 2007Big balls of steel and a tiny wooden onePeterhof Maier cup - play a petanque tournament in Russia!New link policyPetanque blog feeds updatedPetanque in the Ukraine
Flickr ideas (5 )Drawing the circle after dead jack (4 )Where to play petanque in Thailand (10 )Enquiry please? (2 )Playing Indoos (2 )Illegal Petanque Exposed (5 )most difficult shot/throw? (5 )Nice one! (1 )Terrain for SANDY soils (Florida) (52 )petanque surface aggregates (2 )Right size boule (3 )Size (1 )Article 37 – Incorrect Behaviour, (5 )YouTube has some great clips (1 )2nd boule played although 1st one made it (7 )
