'Opening the game up to everybody has been good for it.' Thus the Evergreen club has kept membership reasonably healthy. 'I got even with those guys: I bought the tavern,' Deutsch says. He recalls, as a German lad, being chased off the rolle bolle court at Ray's in the 1940s by traditionalists who insisted on preserving the sport as a Belgian-only exercise. 'Some old Belgian bollers would be spinning over in their graves to see women on the court,' says Bernie Deutsch. Annual dues for members are $6, and competitors are assessed another $4 for each night of play, a dollar of that going to court maintenance and the other $3 to prizes. To attract more players, it has kept costs low. The club has watched its Belgian descendants shrink to just 15 percent of total membership. each Friday and on their own night, Tuesday, starting at 6 p.m. They play with men in a mixed league at 8 p.m. Charles club has allowed women to participate since the early 1980s. We've taken in more non-Belgian players and women to take up the slack.' There are too many other things to do now. 'It's hard to get young people interested in rolle bolle these days. 'Our membership is down,' admitted Phil Emersonn, a resident of Sheffield, Ill., who is a member of the club. But the Flemish American Club in Kewanee rarely fills the 28 alleys at its court anymore. In western Illinois, rolle bolle was once so popular that many public parks were built to include courts. There is no national association for the sport, but Verkinderen estimated that there are 5,000 active players in the U.S. 'The sport was dying down until the middle 1970s in America, but it has been making a comeback since then,' said Dan Verkinderen of Ghent, Minn., a maker of equipment (his hard-rubber bolles run $35 via mail-order) and an organizer of international tournaments. The game is virtually unknown in the French-speaking Belgian capital of Brussels. Rolle bolle is played in the Flanders region of west Belgium, particularly in the area around Ghent, and in southwest Holland. Elsewhere, the sport flourishes in northern Minnesota, Iowa and Manitoba, Canada, as well as a Belgian retirement center in Mesa, Ariz.Д®ven many Belgians haven't heard of the game. The sport has remained entrenched in western Illinois, in old Belgian enclaves in Moline, Geneseo, Atkinson and Annawan, where the national championships were staged in late July (attended by several players from St. But the last were closed in the 1970s, as was a club in Rockford. There were once myriad rolle bolle clubs where pockets of belgians settled on Chicago's North Side, including the Belgian Club at Fullerton and Western Avenues and the Wooden Shoe at Granville Avenue and Broadway. Fermin Dewindt, an Oakbrook Terrace resident and retired carpenter has been playing at a top notch level for 80 of his 87 years-in St.Charles since 1946. John Paschal, a retired publishing company executive and winner of the state championships held in geneseo earlier this summer, has been bolling at Ray's for 50 years and practiced on a backyard court at his St. Rolle bolle is an addictive gane that cuts across all social classes. the Evergreen Bolling Club a loosely knit organization that calls Rays it's headquarters, has more than 50 members most of then faithful patrons of the bar between games. Its also good business for Bernie and Pat Deutsch, the owners of Rays since 1988. This is the one game that men and women can do together and enjoy equally. His wife, Peggy, however, appreciates an entirely different aspect of the game: 'I know everybody here and they're a great group of friends to have'.

Rolle bolle game