The politics of bowls clubs

Bowls has a reputation as a sedate pastime, but it can be as fiercely competitive as any other sport. It can even get rowdy. At the Edinburgh cup final in 2012, a young player, angry at losing the match, stripped down to his boxers in protest. When committee members from his team tried to restrain him, he headbutted the club secretary.

Bowls players have always taken the sport very seriously. According to popular legend, Sir Francis Drake was playing bowls at Plymouth Hoe when the Spanish Armada came into view off the headland. He insisted on finishing the game. Battle could wait, bowls couldn’t.

The object of the game is simple: get your bowls closer to the ‘jack’ than your opponent. That said, the sport is more sophisticated than the French variation, boules. Each bowl has a ‘bias’, meaning it curves to the left or the right. You can’t deliver it in a straight line like a ten-pin. It’s a common misconception that the bowls are weighted. In fact, they’re cut at the manufacturing stage to create a high and low shoulder so they naturally bend to one side.

There are regional variations, too. In the north of England there is ‘crown green’, a less refined version of the game where the green isn’t flat and bowlers can play in all directions. England has two rival associations with minor rule differences.

Bowls used to be made by turning wood. In the Victorian era they were often created from old railway sleepers, but nowadays they’re made from a plastic resin shaped to exact specifications. One of the leading manufacturers, based in Australia, uses precision machinery originally intended for aircraft design to make sure every bowl in a set is the same.