What bowls has to offer …

• Geoff Behrent writes:

I am a man on a mission.

And that mission is to shake up non-bowlers’ preconceptions and general ignorance of the game of bowls which have led them to mistakenly – and sometimes even rather nastily – attach labels of “old man’s marbles” and “dying game” and so on and so forth to the game so loved by so many tens of thousands of people in South Africa and around the world.

Let’s first of all examine the issue of “old man’s marbles” and put that notion to bed once and for all.

Bowls is not only played by so-called “old men”. There are very many young ladies out there who are in their 20s or younger who regularly play the game.

Randfontein Bowling Club proudly boasts two such players. If the definition of “old” means anyone over 60 years of age, well, the majority of our club’s female players certainly do not meet that criterion. Yes indeed, there are players of both genders who are over 60 (one lady in our club is 93 years of age) so the spread of ages is very wide indeed; but in no way whatsoever can anyone define all bowls players as “old men”.

Taking this further. I did a snap survey of bowlers the other day by posing the question, “How old were you when you started playing bowls?” First of all, I was 55 and have now been playing for nearly 20 years. The club’s president started playing when she was 45 and has been playing bowls for over three decades! Some other players said they had started playing in their 30s and 40s while a few did admittedly only start later in life, especially once they retired. So, please bear in mind when you see the ‘seniors’ playing the game, they generally began their careers in the sport when they were pretty young and have continued playing for many, many years since they first started! But without exception every one of them playing today emphatically stated that they now wish they had begun playing a lot sooner!

And now to the issue of “marbles”. I understand that the term is used jokingly and I accept that. But the reality is that bowls balls are not in any way, shape or form “marbles”. They are very much bigger, heavier, not made of glass and are not perfectly spherical so that puts that issue to bed once and for all!

There is a notion that bowls is a “dying game” and I am at a loss as to where this comes from. I can hazard a few guesses though. My first is that some bowls clubs have closed, which has created this erroneous impression. Other sporting codes’ clubs have closed (one right next door to Randfontein Bowling Club for example) but does that mean that their sports are “dying out”? No ways. Of course not! I have been told that Randfontein once had something like four bowls clubs and now there is only one. Bowls clubs in the area were very active when mining operations were still very much on the go but had to close because of the virtual shutdown of that industry in our neck of the woods. Then, in other geographical areas, politics raised its ugly head. Certain municipal clubs were shut down by the powers that be and put to other uses. Furthermore, I know of one club on the West Rand that was closed by its parent country club so it could be turned into a fitness centre.

Secondly, some clubs have been complacent and did not go out of their way to attract new members while some found that the cost of upkeep became unsustainable. Because of the high cost of maintenance, many clubs amalgamated with other clubs and thereby pooled their resources as well as their membership. I know for a fact that it costs Randfontein Bowling Club many thousands of rand each year to keep our club in the best condition it can and that we certainly do all in our power to keep our doors open and attract new members. Other clubs, on the other hand, lost their focus (a certain club in coastal Natal I know of for example) and spent more energy on drinking and social events than on the game itself, which led to its downfall!

So, you sceptics out there, do not judge bowls as a “dying game” because there has been a reduction in the number of actual clubs; rather measure the game’s success by the number of people playing it!

Remember that bowls is a young person’s game that can be played well into old age, so why not put your pre-conceived ideas aside and come and see for yourself what bowls has to offer? I promise you, you will be pleasantly surprised …

If you need any further information, or should you want to start or re-start playing bowls (our greens are open for play on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon from 13:00, while on Friday afternoons we play Last Man Standing from about 16:00 – a fun variation of bowls that can be enjoyed by non-bowlers too), please contact Randfontein Town Bowling Club’s president, Vera Pretorius on 082 779 5177.