Having been involved in the sport for 31 years now I achieved what I believe is the pinnacle of my ambitions last year at the Commonwealth Games in Australia. To receive that piece of paper advising I had made the team was potentially the best letter I will ever open and to bring a medal home topped it off.
One of the highlights of the trip was going to the opening ceremony and walking out with Team England in front of thousands of spectators and being waved at from the seats by Prince Charles and Camilla. It was also quite surreal stepping into a lift in the Athletes Village with the likes of Dina Asher Smith, the Brownlee Brothers and Tom Daley to name a few and also reaffirmed my belief that our sport stands tall with any in the world so it is a huge frustration that it is burdened with such a poor stigma from those outside of bowls.
On my return from Australia I set off on a personal journey to promote and develop our sport through school visits, club visits, and attending various events generally in my own time and on a voluntary basis. My initial feelings when attending each event was one of slight fear as I know exactly what perception the majority of people have about the sport and genuinely thought my attendance would go unnoticed or there would be a lack of interest in trying bowls for the first time. My fears thankfully were short lived as I started to understand that there was a common interest from a wide range of individuals who were intrigued not only by the many benefits the sport brings but also how addictive it can be when you try that first bowl.
I have always stressed that bowls is no different to any other ball and target sport like a lot of those we see at the forefront of TV and generally pushed by schools throughout the UK. When we strip each of them down to basics it is kicking a ball into a target net, hitting a ball into open space with a bat to generate runs, throwing and catching an oval ball down a field to cross a line or in our case rolling a biased ball 30 metres to get close to a smaller target ball.
What do each of these have in common? They are all not easy to achieve and those who participate are always striving to master the objective and get better.
I fully appreciate that some sports create a great atmosphere and have an x factor that attracts higher audiences but we have also seen many sports that have adapted their format over the years to achieve this. We are starting to see this in bowls with the introduction of several new concepts that have the potential to drive the sport into a new era that is attractive to a new audience and change that key word “perception”.
Open Singles Circuit, Short Mat Players Tour, Ultimate Bowls Championship, Australian Bowls Premier League to name a few are huge events with great prizes, music, crowd atmosphere and most important they are becoming a social event where spectators can watch top standard bowls whilst relaxing in a great environment.
This is all great from the corporate angle of the sport but I strongly believe that a lot of clubs and those involved within the sport are always thinking within the confines of bowls at the grassroots level. By this I mean there is a general theme that is followed by so many who think that everyone is going to know exactly what the sport is about and that the increase of numbers will come from those within the bowls fraternity. Very little thought or promotion is offered to anyone who has never seen a bowl, may never have heard of the sport or to someone who is looking for an opportunity to try something new.
I am currently doing some voluntary work for Youth Almighty Project based in my community of Silksworth and they are very proactive in providing groups and services for all residents in the area. My involvement has been in a men’s and ladies group where I have had the opportunity to introduce those attending to carpet bowls and it has been a huge success. There are around 10 men attending one group and 15 women at the other and I have already had discussions about visiting an indoor centre during the winter and bringing them to my outdoor club in the summer. This is just the start but imagine how many new potential bowlers we can introduce all over the country providing a similar service for a couple of hours a week? I strongly believe there is a large untapped market of people who know nothing about our sport and regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or disability we need to encourage everyone to try bowls.
To finish I also wanted to add something I have also learned over the last couple of years. If Bowls is to continue to be relevant, vibrant and fun to new generations of bowlers and respond to a decline in membership, our primary objective must be to listen to and understand why there are millions of non-bowlers up and down the country. Then, we need to look at ourselves as current bowlers & administrators, be brave and evolve “our offer” to make bowls attractive to those who currently don’t even give us a try.
Article originally written in 2019