District Sports - 10 Pin Bowling

22 March.  Our Rotary club has always supported the District ten pin bowling competition, and this year I volunteered to organise Aurora’ participation. I quickly learnt that organising this event  was quite complicated, and not without some financial risk. I also learnt that it’s a good idea to read the instructions beforehand.

10 pin bowling

The competition works like this: individual clubs organise teams of four bowlers, who then go along to a bowling alley to play two games, and their scores are sent to the District co-ordinator. He then invites the 12 highest – scoring teams to contest the final later in the year. When I asked members if they would be interested in forming a team for the competition, I was delighted to find that 16 expressed an interest. That’s four teams. So the next thing was to find a date that was convenient for everyone. This is where my problems began.

                                                    Bowling done properly

Tolworth Bowling Alley is the most convenient venue for most of us, so I went on to their website, to establish the best nights to book lanes.  I was aware that 10 pin bowling clubs are popular, and will often block-book several lanes for their competitions, and ideally I wanted to find out whether there were any evenings when these clubs were not present, as we would have a better chance of getting lanes at convenient times. Also, it can be a bit intimidating when your average score for a frame is about 5, while the guy on the lane next door to you is scoring strike after strike.

                                                                Tolworth Bowling Alley

I didn’t find the website very helpful, because I had to actually try to book lanes before I found out if they were available that day. That was no good for me, as I couldn’t book anything  until I knew if people were OK to attend. One thing on the website that disturbed me a little was an announcement that the lift at Tolworth was out of order ‘until further notice’. Obviously, the DG, who wanted to attend, would be unable to do so if she couldn’t get into the premises. So I decided to phone them and talk to someone. This is when I discovered that the bowling alley, for years known as ‘Charrington Bowl’ is now owned by a leisure group called Hollywood Bowl, who seem to own bowling alleys all across the country. The telephone number got me through to a central switchboard, but the woman I spoke to couldn't advise on the best times to book, as even she didn't know if lanes were available until a booking was attempted, for which I would have to pay the whole cost up front (no group discounts for us). Furthermore, she didn’t seem to know about the lift at Tolworth being out of order.

I felt that I was getting nowhere with this, so resolved to go along to Tolworth in person and speak to someone there. So, on the day of the Shepperton Charities Fair, after dropping off the DG at the Village Hall, I drove over to Tolworth in my new car. The traffic was dreadful, in fact I had to turn round on the Hampton road, as roadworks were going to delay me by an hour or more, and instead went via Walton bridge and East Molesey. That was also problematical, as the right turn near Hampton Court bridge took over 20 minutes to execute. All this was happening as I tried to bond with the new car, which was turning itself off every time I stopped (and sometimes when I wasn’t stopped) and would only re-start when I pressed the clutch pedal. How can this save fuel? Surely the action of starting the engine uses more fuel than leaving it on.

                                                                Hampton Court bridge

                                 

Eventually I got there, noticing the lift was still out of order, and went upstairs to speak to the assistant on the desk. She was very helpful, and explained that there was club bowling most nights, but weekday evenings usually had plenty of availability for booking lanes, so provided I gave a week’s notice, there shouldn’t be any problems. I would still have to pay in full when booking the lanes, the only alternative being to turn up on the off-chance, which seemed far too risky. She couldn’t confirm when the lift would be fixed, and suggested I check when booking. She gave me a direct phone number to call when I knew what date I wanted.

                                                     Retro - the cafe at Tolworth

Now I felt I was getting somewhere so I circulated our 16 people to try and find a date suitable to everyone. I gave three separate dates, on different days of the weeks, and 15 of us opted for  Monday 22^nd March, with only Janet Matthews being unavailable that day.  Ron Enticott, after minimal arm twisting from me, agreed to take the vacant place, and I booked the bowling alley, telling everyone that if they dropped out they would still have to pay, as the bowling alley were adamant that they don’t give refunds. In the event two did drop out, and even though the lift was working the DG decided to watch rather than play, so we actually had 13 players on the evening, enough for 3 teams plus one extra person. At my suggestion we shared cars to get to Tolworth, and I went with the DG, Ken Howe and Brian Holt.

                                                        Shepperton Aurora teams A, B and C

The bowling alley have relaxed many of their rules over the years. I used to go to Tolworth as a teenager in the early ‘70s, and I distinctly remember a ‘no jeans’ rule applicable in those days. The reason I remember it so well, is that I was refused entry one day because I was wearing jeans. The school friend I was with, who decided to argue about this ruling, was physically thrown out by a large man in a dinner jacket and bow tie, who I assumed was employed as a bouncer.  I left more quietly than my friend. Tonight however I noticed no such rules about dress code. Not wishing to be ejected on this occasion, I had ensured I was not wearing jeans myself, although almost everybody else in the building was wearing them. 

                                                           Should it be allowed? 10 pin bowling in jeans

Furthermore, although there were bowling shoes available to use, the girl on the desk said we could wear the shoes we came in if we wanted. I was surprised at this, as surely the reason for wearing proper bowling shoes is to prevent damage to the lanes. Later in the evening I was amazed to observe, a few lanes down from us, a young lady in stilettos (I kid you not) walking down the lane to retrieve her ball which hadn’t returned to her automatically. Another surprising relaxation of rules was that we were allowed to take our drinks on to the sitting area by the lanes, which would never have been allowed a few years ago.

                                                      Bowling shoes

We divided ourselves into teams, with Ken volunteering to be ‘spare’ and then we started the search for a suitable bowling ball. In order to find a ball with holes big enough for my fingers, I had to go for one that seemed to weigh a hundredweight. I found bowling it to be quite an effort, but boy, did it knock those pins flying! After a few practice bowls we got our game under way. We only had two lanes between us, although I was sure I had ordered four.  This made it a bit crowded in the bowling area, but wasn’t really a problem as we had a good laugh during the evening, and I think we all enjoyed ourselves. There is another notable change from my earlier days of ten pin bowling, in that scoring is now electronic, and its all done for you. No longer do you have to try and find someone who can count to do the scoring, and then spend the rest of the evening arguing over who scored what.

                                                            Choose your ball

Our scores were modest, with our top scorer being John Dumbrell, who scored 130 in his first game, although his next game is probably best forgotten. Chris Arnot scored consistently, and finished around 120 per game, as did I, with David and Brian a little way behind us. On another day, I think I will put the four best players in one team, as it would give us a greater chance of reaching the final. Best lady was Sylvia, who scored 134 across the two games.  Most of us achieved at least one strike during the course of the evening, but the biggest cheer of the evening was for Pauline who, after scoring zero in the previous two frames, managed a strike in the seventh frame of her second game. 

                                               Strike!

The few lanes to our right were taken up with club bowlers who were racking up enormous scores. I admired their style, as most of them bowled the ball with quite a flourish. Several of them, I noticed, wore a kind of wrist support apparatus, which obviously helped in some way. One particular chap had strikes virtually every time he bowled. The top score in ten pin bowling is, I think, 330 and he must have come very close indeed. I felt a bit sorry for him and his colleagues, because if you score a strike with your first ball, you don’t get to throw your second ball. I feel that at least we got our money’s worth out of the evening as we mostly used both balls in each frame.

                                                                           High tech - Wrist support

Our ‘A’ team, comprising Sylvia and David Courtney, with Peter and Ann McDonough, returned with an aggregate score of 585 over their two games. The ‘B’ team, John and Jean Dumbrell, myself and Gill Fawcett, scored a fabulous 676, and amazingly the ‘C’ team (Brian, Pauline, Ron and Chris) also scored 676. In the unlikely event that we reach the final, we should have two teams that qualify.

When I got home, I had to send our scores off to the District organiser, with our fee of £5 per team. It was only then whilst reading the instructions that I noticed I was supposed to register the teams with him before the end of February. I had missed this small matter completely so phoned Tony Townsend to ask if I could belatedly register our three teams at the same time as sending in our scores. At first he was unwilling, but when I told him our scores he seemed happier to accept them. From this I am assuming that none of our teams have made the final, but we should find out officially soon.

                                                                        Ball juggling -  Peter's party piece