On their annual jaunt to play boules in increasingly far flung places, Tansy & Paul Mayfield ventured to the States.  By lucky coincidence, New York Petanque Club was holding a new 2 day competition in honour of one of its former members  - and World and European champion Dylan Rocher was to be guest of honour (you think it would have been us – but apparently we don’t have the same draw).  This was too good a chance to miss, so despite spending our weekend nights at a late night noise fest it seemed worth operating on 3 hours sleep to join in.  On Friday afternoon Dylan gave a shooting exhibition at the clubs main terrain in beautiful Bryant Park, Manhattan.  To the bemusement of bypassers, and the awed silence of the boules players, he aimed to shoot 100 boules in less than 10 minutes, and managed 97 in 7 and a half minutes – with a carreau rate of about 60%. 

Having watched that, imagine our equal dismay and delight to draw Dylan (and partner/real life squeeze Lucie Rousseau) in the very first round of the doubles the next morning.  With our ears still ringing, and our hangovers kicking in – it was like lining up against Usain Bolt for the 100m final wearing lead boots.  I would LIKE to say that we gave him a run for his money, but I’d be a liar! That said, we did score actual points of our own making (all 2 of them), we made a dead end, we pointed and carreaud some good boules and we did eke it out for 50 minutes.  He may have been kind, but we did give a reasonable (if not dazzling) account of ourselves. 

Sadly, this also constituted the peak of our day, and we played like the hungover, sleep deprived, also-rans for the rest of the day: we perked up on Sunday and had some cracking games but not enough to see us into the prize winning slots.  The standard of play was pretty fierce in the main, with French, Arabic and African expats demonstrating their skills (I spoke and heard more French than English it felt like – but that may have been the hangover being balanced out by good rose and ricard).

In a good final late on Sunday afternoon, Dylan Rocher & Lucie Rousseau beat Phillipe Menier & Xavier Thibaud (a Swansea City fan!) to 6.   As a parting shot, Dylan donated the boules with which he won the European Chapionships and Millau to the club.  For someone in quite another league of ability, he was friendly and respectful to all (prima donnas take note) and a great ambassador for the game.

Many thanks to all at the New York club for their warm welcome – especially Thierry & Jean Pierre – and to Jon & Corey who – travelling up from Florida for the competition – were the other ‘foreigners’.