People have got lawn bowls all wrong. A sport considered an older person’s game by many saw more than 10 million people glued to their screens during the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Now, with this year’s games in Glasgow just a few months away, fans are wondering if bowls can grow even further and beat curling’s recent Winter Olympics viewership boom?
”The Commonwealth Games is the platform for bowls that puts us on a level playing field with every sport, the prestige of it is incredible,” said Lincolnshire bowler Amy Pharaoh, who has been selected to represent England at this year’s Games.
Born in Grimsby, Amy has won four Commonwealth Games medals and three World Bowls Championships medals throughout her illustrious 33-year career.
While the Commonwealth Games is the current pinnacle of the sport, there is ambition for an inclusion in the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Amy has been dreaming of representing England at the Olympics since she was 14. She is also a full-time PE teacher and tries to encourage more of her students to take up the sport. Unlike many other sports, the average age of a bowls player is between 50 and 55.
”Sadly, we don’t have enough young people playing,” said Amy. “We are going to need them to keep the clubs going because they’re the future and it is really important to get them in.”
A game rich with history, bowls is thought to have been developed in Egypt, dating back to 5000 BC.
Today, there are over 3500 clubs, making it one of the most played sports in the UK.
It has long had a strict white tops and grey trousers dress code, making it a barrier for many to start playing. The length of matches has been an issue, too, with games often lasting up to four hours.
To tackle these concerns, Bowls England has launched a more relaxed, progressive and youth-friendly version of the sport called Bowls Bash. It encourages a colourful dress code, with games only lasting an hour.
Jasbir Batt, clubs and participation Officer at Bowls England, is at the forefront of the work being done to make the sport more accessible to young people. In the last year he has worked with over 200 schools who have been interested in bowls in a bid to change the sport’s image of being ”an old man’s game”.
With the Commonwealth Games fast approaching, Jasbir believes that it is essential to capitalise on the opportunity of being one of just 10 sports retained at the event.
”The schedule being reduced this year gives us a huge opportunity to increase the visibility around our sport and we hope to build on the 10 million viewers from Birmingham 2022,” he said.
Lincolnshire is without doubt one of the counties playing a big role in raising the image of bowls. There are many great players hailing from Lincoln, Spalding and Grimsby.
Formerly representing Carters Park in Holbeach, playing for England, and winning the National Mixed Pairs, Annie Dunham is now working for the Bowls Development Alliance (BDA), aiming to help the sport thrive in Lincolnshire.
Bowls will be part of the Inspire Plus Mini Olympics – held in Grantham – for the first time this year. There will be over 2,800 children during the three-day event, giving them a chance to experience bowls like never before.
Annie believes that this is just one of the many great initiatives in Lincolnshire, with the BDA looking to put on additional junior sessions for any children interested in taking up bowls after the event.
In terms of growing the sport at the highest level, she believes that more needs to be done to promote all the great Lincolnshire players ahead of the Commonwealth Games.
”We really need to elevate the players that are playing at international level into real superstars to market ourselves better and I don’t think we do that well enough at the moment,” said Annie.
As well as world-class players, Lincolnshire is also home to some of the most renowned bowls clubs in the country. Lincoln & District Indoor Bowling Club (LIBC) currently has over 1100 members, making it one of the best attended across the UK.
”We run a junior academy, free sessions for people struggling with mental health, as well as social events, so it’s thriving, it’s going really well,” said LIBC General Manager Danny Brown.
Although bowls seems to have always had an age issue, things certainly seem to be moving in the right direction, encouraged by the success at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
With a reduced format and potentially even more eyes on the sport, players like Amy will be hoping to do Lincolnshire proud in Glasgow this summer, while the sport itself will be aiming to smash all the records set four years ago.
