RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30965, 22 January 1966, Page 42

RANDOM REMINDER

SPORTING OCCASION

One of New Zealand’s great sporting occasions is the national bowls tournament, for which Christchurch is host every fourth year. Another tournament on Christchurch and Canterbury greens ended last week, and it knit a little closer the companionship of competitors in New Zealand’s most popular adult sport To Christchurch they came in hundreds, old ones, younger ones, large, lean, long and short. They played bowls for a fortnight or so, they talked bowls all the time, and they gathered, in the evenings, to enjoy each others society. For mapy, it

meant the renewal of friendships enjoyed only at this annual tournament, and from it all nothing but good can have come. Bowls is a highly skilful game, but it has its element of luck too, and there are even more upsets at a national tournament than at a race meeting. Often the greatest fall to the least-known; but in bowls defeat seems to mean much less than it does in other sports. This may be because bowlers are, in the main, men of maturity, who have had time to realise how unimportant the result is. One of the teams which enjoyed itself particularly.

consisted of four men of fairly advanced years, who had a considerable following of friends among the other bowlers, and outsiders. They gave their supporters only one real fright: that was when they were down only by about four points near the end of a match, and looked possible winners. For in their eight qualifying games, they were beaten by handsome margins seven times, and there was a general feeling that it would be a pity to spoil the record. They duly lost all eight; but for them, too, it was a great tournament

And it is this sort of reaction which makes It so.