Egremont Bowling Club plans to celebrates it 25th Anniversary in style this month. It will be welcoming visitors to its club premises on Howbank Road in an Open Day on 8th July, starting at 1.30pm. There will plenty of fun and games arranged, a jumble sale and refreshments.
The quality of the play we saw when we visited a normal Saturday afternoon event, when teams from the Club engaged in friendly rivalry to play for the Carnival Shield, was really impressive. Most ends finished with at least one bowl nestling snugly against the jack, and even an inexperienced visitor could grasp something of the skill required to achieve just the right weight and judge the bias correctly so that the crucial wood could sneak its way between cunningly placed obstacles to reach its target. The strategy of the game also became clearer. After getting one wood near the jack, the team needed to make life more difficult for its opponents by dropping its next woods just short of the target. In spite of the meanness of such tactics, the bowlers appear to be warm friends and enjoy socialising with other clubs in the Triples competition with other local clubs, and enjoy sharpening their focus by practising a difficult and time honoured art. While most of its seventy members are probably of retirement age and enjoy the excellent mental and physical exercise the game provides, the Club has in sixteen year old Stephanie Moffatt a player of star quality, and would warmly welcome more like her.