Anecdotes from Gerard Naudo

While wandering the internet, I some humorous anecdotes from experienced bouler, Gerard Naudo who describes petanque players with eloquent terms like: musicians, concert performers, entertainers, and virtuosos. <>

With his advice on playing boule comes a story or two: <>

At all times, it is necessary to know, not only how many boules your adversary has, but more importantly, in whose hands those boules will be played (pointers and shooters). To solidify this lesson comes a story about a match where one of the opposing players asked Gerard’s brother Jean (who was playing with him) -

Opponent: “You have how many boules?”

Jean responded, “Two!” to which they hold out their hands, Gerard hand is holding the only (one) boule.

The adversary then asks, “I thought you said you had two boules left to play?”

Jean smartly answers, “Yes, because in the hands of my brother (Gerard) it is worth two!” <>

Another time, a pal of his, Macari, had purchased a pair of cheap shoes in Italy. But upon his arrival in Nimes, he realized that the shoes were mismatched, the left foot was a size 43 (his size) and the right, a size 45. He decided that he’d use the shoes against his petanque opponents. At the time, it was typical that when the boules to be measured were a fair distance from the cochonnet, the measuring string was not long enough, and players would use their shoes to measure the distance. Macari always started on his left (shorter) shoe when measuring the boule of his adversary; and began with his longer right shoe when measuring his own boule.

Thus, when an “odd” number of steps would be needed, the final shoe used to measure his adversary’s distance would be the longer shoe and he’d have a 2-3 centimeters advantage.
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(Excerpted/Translated from Gerard Naudo)