Back on the piste again

The other day I was sitting in the Calthorpe Arms in the Grays Inn Road, being half-an-hour early for the nearby Spectator party, and watching highlights of the India vs England one-day cricket match on the pub television. I noticed a woman at the next table gazing at it in some awe, so I said to her amicably: "Are you keen on the game?"

"What game is it?" she said.

She was from Florida. She had heard of cricket but never seen it before. I was about to embark on an explanation of the rough idea of the game, but common sense descended on me and I fled to The Spectator. Several hours later, I emerged and jumped into a taxi to Paddington.

"Bit of a do going on?" said the driver.

"It's a party given by The Spectator magazine," I said.

He thought for a moment.

"Football magazine, is it?"

Yes, there are still huge areas of ignorance in sport, especially between sports, and tariff barriers still exist. I can think of only one new game which has made real inroads into England in my lifetime. Not ice hockey, not American football, but petanque, or boules. The game which people notice when on holiday in France, played by old men under plane trees on the village square, and which has somehow infiltrated itself into the twinning process, so that when a town in Devon unwillingly entertains its counterparts from somewhere in Brittany, at least they can play a boules contest.

It's very French, boules, insofar as it needs no grass. The French have always been better at growing gravel than grass, which explains why the French Tennis Open is played on red grit, and why boules (or petanque) is played on gravel, twigs, dead leaves and expired Gauloises.

Despite which, petanque has become so well-established in the south of England (the North, too? I don't know) that leagues have sprung up all over the place, and many pubs now have their own boules patches (or pistes) in the garden behind. Not only is a gravel strip easier to develop than a croquet lawn, but petanque is one of those attractive games that have few rules and infinite variety. It demands skill and a certain blithe malice, but nothing like the hard-eyed cruelty involved in croquet. Above all, there is a theatrical quality in petanque, because there is a little drama attached to every throw and a lot of drama attached to most throws.

The high spot of my boule-throwing year is the annual Boules Weekend in Bath, which I have written about here before, and after which I always get letters from people in Sherston in north Wiltshire saying (I paraphrase): "If you think Bath Boules Day is good, blimey, you should come to Sherston, which is the boules capital of England, and see Sherston Boules Day, which knocks spots off Bath..." And having finally been to Sherston for the start of the season last Sunday, I can quite believe it.

Bath is organised by the Beaujolais restaurant and Great Western Wines, and is open almost entirely to local teams, usually from restaurants and usually manned by French waiters raring to show the English how to play. Sherston is open to teams from everywhere, 128 of them, travelling from as far apart as France and Cheshire. Sherston, in other words, is a small village hosting an international event of high standard, while Bath is a famous city hosting a local, determinedly amateur event. If they didn't take place on the same weekend, this coming one, I'd go to both like a shot.

As it is, I am committed to Bath – indeed, I was out in Queen Square last Sunday for a practice with one of my fellow players, Jonathan Dimbleby. Before he arrived in the grey, rainy arena, I was tossing a few boules around on the gravel, the only person in the rather autumnal scene except for a lone woman on a bench eating a sandwich. After a few minutes she strolled across and said: "Excuse me, but may I ask what game you are playing? I have never seen it before."

Here we go again. She was from Arizona. I explained how it worked. I asked her if she wanted to try a game. She said she would have a go, although she couldn't hit the side of a barn. She was wrong. By the time Jonathan arrived, she was beating me 5-3, so I was mighty glad to see him arrive and her go. But I wonder, just wonder, if we may have planted a small seed there, and if Arizona might not be the first place where petanque might sprout in the American heartland. I believe they have lots of lovely sand and gravel there.