A dozen club members aged between 40 and mid-60 are standing in a line at the edge of Essen’s city garden. They are holding an iron ball loosely under their palms. “On the green one?” – “On the green one.” A metal ball flies next to the small green ball on the gravel path. Training of the Boule Pétanque Club for the Open Championships.
The club in the Stadtgarten is one of around 130 clubs in NRW, 33 of which are in the Ruhr area, according to the Boule and Pétanque Association. The sport and the state have a long shared history. In May 1963, one of the first boules clubs in Germany was founded in Bonn, and in 1977 the first German championship was held in Bad Godesberg. The club in the Stadtgarten did not even exist at that time. Since 1998, the members have been throwing their balls on a path by the park.
Every day on the pitch: Always on the pig
It is perfect boules weather: dry, sunny, but not hot. “We actually play here every day,” says Melanie Dyrla. The 44-year-old teacher is the chairwoman of the club. She herself got into boules while on holiday in France. In a green container, surrounded by large chestnut trees, there are boules, wooden boards for counting points, folding tables and chairs.
For people who are not familiar with the sport, they play boules. Strictly speaking, however, this is a general term for a whole range of ball games. The sport is actually called pétanque.
The second chairman, Marcel Hoffrogge, and his partner place the red starting circle on the path under the chestnut trees. It marks where both players can throw from. “Allez! To the pig!” “Pig” or “piglet” is what they call the small green ball that they want to get as close to as possible with their iron balls. Both are training for the German championships.
Once you taste blood, you stay with it
In pétanque, two teams always compete against each other, but there are different game modes. Triplette, which is three against three, doublette, two against two, and finally tête-à-tête, a one against one. Whoever gets 13 points first wins. In Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia, there is an extensive league system. But not everyone in the club in the Stadtgarten takes part in the official competitions. Many play only for themselves or in club-internal championships.
Boule is a lot about concentration and strategy. “I have to think in advance about what points my opponent can score with his next throw,” says Hoffrogge. “If I only have one ball left, I could, for example, shoot the opponent’s ball away or put it closer to the boar.” But the sport also convinced him for other reasons.
Like many people here, Hoffrogge came to boules from football. And very early on. “I was 13 years old when I always met a group of players on the way home on a field. Soon I was playing every day,” says the 48-year-old school janitor. He says that once you’ve been infected with the boules game, you rarely give kicking a ball a chance.
We also discussed this topic on 18.07.2024 in the WDR Television reports: Local time Ruhr7.30 p.m.
