Watching the demise of bowls……….

Disclaimer – The following blog may not be a representative of the Wrong Bias Podcast views, it was a blank canvas given to a guest blogger.

……….or are we entering a new era – a Darlington spin on things

Bowls in my memory and the way I was taught was to win at all costs and I loved it! – However over the 90s two things changed. Clubs and bowlers became ignorant to their surroundings (myself included) and played the best teams they could get out, leaving no opening for new players or members. The second is that local Councils changed the way that their parks were managed meaning less availability of social bowls until eventually bowls clubs were to run greens for themselves even though they were council maintained.

BANG ……….hearing the front door go at barely the age of 5/6 and there’s my Dad storming in, throwing his bowls bag down vowing never to play again after a row at the Darlington Indoor Bowls Club.  It doesn’t sound that attractive but when I first started bowling at 11, bowls in Darlington was a very competitive game. There were five divisions of ten teams and even the poorer teams had very competitive skips and their job was to dictate and shout at the front two to get them to play.  That was how I was brought up and it wasn’t uncommon in the early 90’s. Now the same league has two divisions of nine teams, but why?

When this change came in the clubs were free to embrace change and find their own direction, however what the bowlers chose to do was to spend the next 20 years moaning and blaming the councils for their demise. I even attended a meeting fairly recently where ‘New Local Golf Clubs’ mean bowls isn’t as popular anymore (these golf clubs appeared late 80’s/90s) but was still the fault of bowls demise in 2018. As you can imagine I reacted with the utmost disbelief and as usual not so diplomatically!

My most hated statement heard in bowls is “there’s just no young’uns coming through anymore” – arrghhh – I’m sorry but there’s never been young’uns, in fact when I started the league rules had to be changed to allow me to play.

In the early noughties our local league had already lost two divisions, I offered to help two clubs in about 2005/6 with the offer of amalgamation and even letting them stay at their own green as they were struggling. Both clubs voted against this and folded the following year. Darlington Central Bowls Club and the GPO both turned us down, Central being the 2nd oldest club after us in Darlington folded. It was at this point I realised that I wasn’t going to win any popularity contests and votes likely went against me due to my reputation. I then made the decision to stop trying to save bowls and to make South Park my sole concentration.

Bowls from 2000 was a very different game, as clubs tried to survive and the old style of bowler passed on many clubs were left with some new bowlers but with no one with the skills to show them what to do. Also a new culture of selfishness developed where the better bowlers would all be poached to play at the same team which causes the ‘Scottish Premier League Effect’ – only Rangers and Celtic with any good players and the rest a shambles. This hasn’t really changed in Darlington to this day.

From a personal point of view I have had to adapt my own personality and although I am disliked across many teams in Darlington I would like to think that within my own club I have good relationships across the board. I am a friendly guy what people think I’m not afraid to say!! – Although I’m still competitive and have the occasional wobbler on the green I try to treat bowlers at my own club equally and with respect, whether it be team selection or socially. This is bearing its fruits now and continued persistence on Social Media and continued new ideas has taken our club into a new era.

It seems only when a club hits rock bottom that it either does something about it, or it folds. Most fold but the beauty of hitting rock bottom is that you start with new players, new ideas, no reluctance to change, willingness to get involved and as numbers go up this builds clubs for the future and im proud to say that is where we are at now at Darlington South Park.

Green Shoots………

Although sadly I think I will be dead before the future of bowls is defined there are green shoots, the introduction of coloured bowls is massive but still not big in Darlington yet. The introduction of coloured shirts is making bowlers more approachable to the public rather than us being an untouchable sport. If we can get formats such as Ultimate Bowls etc into England that could be massive. I rant about the dull Potters setup but it works for them, they get a wealthy clientele of a certain age which with the TV coverage and onsite entertainment runs well as a business. For that reason alone the motivation to change may not be there and although I moan I don’t necessarily blame them.

Sadly yet again I go back into story mode of the constraints on doing anything new in the game:

In another beautiful story I was Secretary of what was known as the Sherwood Bowls League. A 9 team Friday Night League of clubs that are really struggling. Stupid me thought I could have influence on modernising this and bringing it back to life. I introduced a new website with online updates and write ups and started adding extra South Park teams to it to get the numbers up. In 2018 I was feeling the pressure of kids, work, bowling every night, running a club and a league so decided to give up the league. However as I loved all of these jobs I said if someone can come up with a new format to revive the league and help teams bowling regularly short. This would give me something to promote the league to sponsors and invite other clubs to something different in which I will stay on.

It gets better (don’t fall asleep)……

It was agreed that an extraordinary meeting would take place to decide a new format as no one wanted to run the league. I attended the meeting quite excited, the RA didn’t bother to turn up to state their position which already put new ideas in the back foot. Darlington Woodland advised that they would resign if we didn’t keep the status quo so naturally instead of calling their bluffs other teams weren’t happy. It was a very heated meeting but it went to a vote and a new format was actually voted in, everyone left angry and someone threw the meeting paperwork all over the street in disbelief.

It hadn’t been 24 hours before I got an email saying that we have formed a new league and your club is invited to join, we have a committee of 3 and we all resign from the Sherwood League.

If I’m honest I just laughed to myself and selfishly my thoughts are now that as all their teams fold, our team now has 3 of the 10 teams in the league. I fully expect us to be have 50%+ of the teams in that league in the future and who knows, maybe it will eventually be ours. Call me a tw*t but I’m willing to fight to get this sport into this century even if kicking and screaming.

Every year now we try to push new rules into the league and clubs are starting to buy into change albeit it’s a struggle. We have even got 4 leagues to accept the use of carpet bowls for under 10’s if they play in the leagues which is a huge step for kids if we ever find ways to attract them to play!

Clubs are starting to see our success and are in oar at times, they ask how do you do it. It’s simple “get off yer arse and try, and continue to try, it’s just like a business, if the offering is poor or no one has heard of you will go bankrupt”. The biggest example is Darlington indoor, its huge and only 50% of Darlington know it exists, a simple huge sign of the busiest road in Darlington would be simply the start………

I apologize for this being a bit of a negative blog but my rage and passion for my sport is bigger than ever and the obvious sometimes needs to be stated.

Thanks to the brilliant guys allowing a loud mouth like me to blog and pop onto their show, they are two great guys and also very passionate bowlers and they themselves are starting a trend that people are following.  We need more of this (Especially in the North East) where private clubs do not dominate the area and grass roots are so much more difficult to maintain.