PETANQUE

The Ancient Greeks are recorded to have played a game of tossing coins, then flat stones, and later stone balls, trying to have them go as far as possible, as early as the 6th century B.C. The Ancient Romans modified the game by adding a target that had to be approached as closely as possible. This Roman variation was brought to Provence by Roman soldiers and sailors. After the Romans, the stone balls were replaced by wooden balls, with nails to give them greater weight. In the Middle Ages it became commonly known as 'boules,' or balls, and it was played throughout Europe... Pétanque (boules) in its present form was invented in 1907 in the town of La Ciotat near Marseilles by a French player named Jules Lenoir, whom rheumatism prevented from running before he threw the ball. The first pétanque tournament with the new rules was organized in 1910 by the brothers Ernest and Joseph Pitiot, proprietors of a café at La Ciotat. After that the sport grew with great speed, and soon became the..

Primary location: United Kingdom