Today is Saturday and for the first time this season we are gathering for a competition. The season started last Saturday and it was great to be back with the friends I have made, in our lovely, little old clubhouse.
But it comes with a bittersweet taste in our mouths as the Club is being sold. I’m not sure who might want to buy a Bowling Club, but only time will tell. A club that has been a second home for many for 110 years. A place where members may perhaps have joined while married and for that husband or wife to pass. The Bowling Club would become even more important as they grieve their loss, with friends who have seen each other through many of life’s difficult times.
This building, this patch of well-tended turf is more than that. This Club has been a haven, a refuge over the years for many. Escaping from the trials and tribulations of work, family and life’s stresses, it has been like home for some who have been here a long time. It will have seen people join as strangers and quickly become friends, that is the tie that binds us, the love of the sport and our bowling families.
Some of the older ones will have joined either with their spouses playing too, or with the spouse at home perhaps enjoying some time doing something that means something to them.
It may have saved marriages, giving each half of a partnership permission and opportunity to have space and time apart and has I’m sure in some cases given something different to talk about at the end of the day. After all, if you spend all day, every day with each other, what is to say at the end of each day, if they all roll into one and you spend no time apart?
It may have been a catalyst for the ending of some marriages. The time spent on the green resented, not understanding why the bowler in their life could choose to spend so much time away from their spouse. There is likely to be more than that, if a marriage founders on the rocks. But perhaps the bowling club, or in some cases the golf club or perhaps even both may be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The thing that gets trotted out during ‘discussions’ of too much time not spent at home.
Then there are the lucky ones. The ones whose spouse equally enjoys the time to be on their own pursuing their own interests. I am one of the lucky ones. I have a husband who understands what bowling means to me. Who understands that it is in my blood, that many family members have stepped on the green themselves and win or lose, there’s no better place to be. They are in the Celestial Clubhouse now and I hope from time to time, they see me bowl and are proud that I am carrying on the love of the game.
This may be the last season at our club. Something that comes with so much sadness. With memories of games won, games lost and games drawn. Of members yelling “ding, ding, ding for a wrong bais” as we all laugh at the expense of the unlucky member who didn’t check their bowl before delivering. There is banter, so much banter on the green between friends both old and new. There is a courtesy to bowls, recognising a great bowl no matter if they are on your team or the opposition’s.
There is the clubhouse where we can usually have a drink or two, while yet more gentle ribbing goes on amid much good-humoured laughter and cheek.
I look around the walls and see the names of many who have played and won and proudly seen their names go up on the wall for all to see. I have one small entry, but there are many who have been regulars on that list. A board containing years and years of winners of competitions, what will become of them? Others may just see a list of names, but for those present, there will always be a tale to tell of how the match went and of course all truthfully told.
Sadly, this is likely to be our last season. Every game looked forward to is a step towards the club’s end. A twinge of sadness every time we set foot on that well tended grass, as we know those footsteps will soon cease.
But, I feel I owe something to those who came before, those with their names on the boards and those that have not. To stay, to play and to be a part of it’s history while it is still ours. Surely, at the very least it deserves that from us.
