BOWLING NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 305, 23 November 1932, Page 12

BOWLING NOTES

(By “Trundler.”

The unfavourable weather which has been marked at the week-ends m recent weeks continued on Saturday, but notwithstanding the unpleasant conditions bowling matches were proceeded with in every instance except one, the Northern green being rather heavy after the rain during the morning, leading to the postponement of the matches with the Palmerston North Club. most unerest was centred in the Dixon Cup match 'between Manawatu and Feilding, the challengers. The trophy which was wrested from Palmerston North a fortnight previously again changed hands, the Feilding players winning by a narrow maigin after a contest of liuctuating fortunes. The holders were in the ascendent in the early and middle stages but at the sixteenth head Feilding took the lead' and due to the fine play of their skip, Wenham, who was given splendid support, remained there till the end of the game to win by the margin of three points. The winners are a well balanced rink. Manawatu and Northern Club exchanged rinks, and the Feilding Club sent several to Terrace End to play the annual inter-club game at that green. Palmerston North and Takaro also exchanged visits, one rink being engaged at each green, while Oroua had as their visitors a number of rinks from the Pahiatua Club. The spirit of inter-club competition is being extensively fostered and in this way the game in the Centre is being benefited to a considerable degree. HOW THE GAME OF BOWLS , EVOLVED.

How old is the game of bowls? Was it played first wuh bronze, iron, or stone bowls? No one can enlighten us (says a writer in the London NewsUiironicle).

A. manuscript in the Royal Library at Windsor makes it clear that the game was played in the thirteenth century. A drawing shows two players bowling at a small cone. Another manuscript of the same century shows a jack being used. One player is following up his bowl and screwing his body in much the same manner as present-day enthusiasts. Many Acts of Parliament were passed to prevent the game being played mainly because it interfered with arcnery. By an Act of 1541, which was not repealed until 1845, artificers, labourers apprentices, and servants were forbidden to play at bowls at any time save Christmas, and then only in their master’s house and presence. Anyone playing the game outside of his own garden, or orchard, was liable to a penalty of 6s Bd, but those people possessed of land of the yearly value of £IOO might obtain a license to play on their private greens. Henry VIII., however, himself broke the laws by having a bowling alley constructed at Whitehall Place, and he betted heavily upon his skill as a player. Biased bowls were first introduced in the sixteenth century. Pieces o'f iron and lead wore skilfully inserted into the woods to give them weight and to make them “pull” over the green. Bowls found considerable favour with the Stuarts. James I. commended it to his son Henry, and Charles I. wagered high stakes, an example followed by others, which brought the game into disrepute. Charles I. frequently. played at Barking Hall, where he lost £IOOO in one game against Richard Shute, a. 'Turkey merchant, who possessed a private green. Charles played much during his captivity at Carisbrook, at Holmbv House, in Northamptonshire, at Harrowden, and at Althorp. He was actually playing a game at Althorp when Cornet Joyce came to remove him to custody. Men played for estate, os well as high stakes, in those days, Sir Edward Hungerford losing his home with the cry, “Here goes Rowdon,” as he threw his last cast at a jack he could not possibly reach. I possess a copy of a set of rules of the game, 20 in number, compiled in 1670 by King Charles 11, James Duke of York, and Georgo Duke of Buckingham. Many of the Royal players’ terms and expressions are used on the green to-day. Rule 13 declares that one foot must remain on the mat. It is not three years since the English Association agreed to make that act an imperative one. These Royal rules also use the word “lie” when referring to a drawn shot. Rule 20 advises the players to “keep your temper,” and remember that he who plays at bowls must take the rubs.”

Many bitter books and pamphlets were written against the game. Bishop Earle, in what ho called his “Microcosmograpliic” (1628); Charles Cotton, in his “Compleat Gamester”; Randle Holme, in his “Academy of Armory” (1683) all decried bowls. “Never did Mimmicke screw his body into half the forms that these men do theirs,” says Cotton, who twitted bowlers upon their loud lying and senseless crying after their running bowls. “It is the best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you may observe fine variety of impatience, while some fret, rail, swear and cavel at everything, others rejoice and laugh, as if that was the sole design of their creation.”

Cotton plagiarised one bright idea from Earle. “To give, you the moral of the game,” he explained, “it is the emblem of the world, or the world’s ambition, where most are short, wide, or wrong biased, and some few jostle into Mistress Fortune.”

I have recently discovered that one of the oldest bowls green in the London area is that on the premises of the Sun Inn, Barnes. Local records take its history back to the fifteenth century. In the fourteenth century all the games of the .village of Berne, as it then was called, were played on a green near the pond, but when cattle keeping in the village increased and the fretful store bullocks and firstquality beeves of that period commenced to tear up the turf, the local blacksmith persuaded his fellow-trades-men to lay a private green at the back of the Sun Inn.

There on successive May Days in the fifteenth century were decided matches between players over VO years and those under 20. The ancients consumed good honest beer during the game, and the juniors drank small beer.

At the Sun Inn to-day some of the bowls used are from seven to twelve bias, which means that on their journey to the jack they described almost a fuil circle in their flight across the top of the green.