Crowning glory for bowls club
For fans of crown green bowling, events don't come much bigger. The 64 top players in the country will battle it in Britain's most prestigious competition, with £4,000 prize money at stake. And it will be held in a small suburb of Wolverhampton.
For fans of crown green bowling, events don't come much bigger. The 64 top players in the country will battle it in Britain's most prestigious competition, with £4,000 prize money at stake. And it will be held in a small suburb of Wolverhampton.
Whoever wins the final at Penn Fields Bowling Club on Saturday will be able to say they are the best player in the country. Yet regardless of the outcome, there will be few prouder than 73-year-old club member Brian Chamberlain. The retired chemist has been appointed president of the British Crown Green Bowling Association for its centenary season.
"I am highly delighted on both scores, it is a great honour for me and the club," he says.
Brian was immediately hooked by the sport after first picking up a bowl while working at the iron and steel maker Stewart and Lloyds in Bilston 45 years ago.
"I was bitten by the bug from the start. It is deceptively simple and hugely frustrating – a young man's game which you can play as long as you can walk and bend down."
Brian has twice been on the winning team of Staffordshire Challenge Cup and has also lifted the Staffordshire Doubles Cup on two occasions during a long career on the greens that sees him still playing four times a week at Penn Fields, the club he joined 10 years ago.
He played no part in selecting the venue to stage the sport's biggest event. The prized honour rotates among 14 different counties, Wolverhampton still coming under the umbrella of Staffordshire. It is the first time the event has been held in Wolverhampton for 86 years.
Saturday will mark the most important moment in Penn Fields 83-year history as the top 64 crown green performers in the country struggle to be named senior individual merit winner for 2007.
The coveted title comes with a £1,000 winners cheque. The knockout event is expected to take around nine hours and among those taking part will be local heroes Ian Whitehouse – the present Staffordshire champion who plays for Nordley Liberal in Willenhall – and Dudley Dell's Peter Withey.
Their sport is played on undulating greens rather than the billiard table-like rinks of flat bowls and is popular with punters. Betting is allowed and bookmakers will be on hand, with the smart money likely to be on current British No 1 Graeme Wilson from Yorkshire and Derbyshire's Andy Spragg who won the event last year.
"This is the one that everybody wants to win but this year will be extra special because it is the British Crown Green Bowling Association's centenary season. That will make it a unique accolade to be champion," says Brian.
A 200-seater grandstand is being built, with a crowd of up to 1,000 people expected to cheer on bowlers from as far afield as the Isle of Man, Cumbria and Wales.
Penn Fields has 85 bowling club members – it is also a social club – and puts out 17 different teams each week. But the past nine months have been dedicated to preparing for the big day.
Bowls section chairman David Booth, a 67-year-old retired bank manager who has played at the club for 15 years, says: "Everything is piecing together nicely although we could have done without the rain.
"We have been pumping water out of the gutters for the last two days. But it could be worse. We could live in Tewkesbury."
Groundsman Colin Mattox, 64, and a retired steel company boss has the unenviable job of ensuring that the ground is playable but insists: "I have not lost a minute's sleep with worry during the run up despite the rain.
"This is a great honour for both the club and the town. I have my fingers crossed and admit to looking more anxiously than normal at the long range weather forecast but I am genuinely not too worried.
"I know we have two greens that are in good condition and the experts are predicting a decent day on Saturday. If we get reasonable weather we are guaranteed a feast of excellent bowling."
The last time the British Crown Green Bowling Association's senior individual merit title was held in Wolverhampton was 1921 when the venue was the Molineux Hotel.
Penn Fields was picked to stage the sport's Junior All England Championships last year. The fact that it passed that test with flying colours greatly increased its chances of landing the big one.
Andy Cooper, 53-year-old social club chairman, says: "This has taken a lot of careful organising and will go ahead come rain or shine. People will have come too far to call it off at the last minute.
"The officials were delighted with the way we handled the Junior All England championship. They said we had an excellent venue and now we aim to prove the point again while hosting the biggest tournament in bowls.
"We are determined to ensure that everybody has a day they will never forget by giving them all some typical Wolverhampton hospitality."
Play starts at 10am on Saturday with the final expected to start round about 7pm. Entry for the day costs £6 with a further £6 for a seat in the grandstand.
