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8 NOT ENOUGH IS BEING DONE
NOT ENOUGH IS BEING DONE
FOR THE APATHETIC!
FOR THE APATHETIC!
OR IS SHORT MAT BOWLS
OR IS SHORT MAT BOWLS
JUST AN APATHETIC SPORT?
JUST AN APATHETIC SPORT?
I fear that Short Mat Bowls will never achieve its true potential
and certainly not in the foreseeable future and the foreseeable
future is many decades long as far as I can see. The govern-
ing bodies only seem capable of running their own affairs, or
not depending on your viewpoint but that is of course their
main priority. It seems that no-one is involved who has a grasp
of the vast world-wide potential of Short Mat Bowls or am I the
only one who can see this? Or perhaps am I just daydreaming and deluding myself?
Sadly, none of us will be around to see whether I’m right or wrong. The various commercial
companies making bowls and general equipment do a great job but seem transfixed by the
outdoor and full length indoor games. Comparing the costs of building an outdoor green or the
vast cost of an indoor complex to the cost of setting up Short Mat Bowls, our costs are negligible
in comparison. Thus we (and carpet bowls), are the cheapest form of bowls and thus the cheap-
est to set up. It is my very firm belief that by helping promote Short Mat on a world basis they
could quickly open the floodgates to selling large amounts of bowls equipment and expanding
their companies. I do not believe that the other versions of bowls will ever achieve anywhere
near the same as Short Mat, IF IT IS PROMOTED PROPERLY.
Marketing costs can be very high but the trick is to find a clever and relatively inexpensive
way of introducing Short Mat Bowls, which I believe would then reach a take-off point with its
own momentum. It would be silly (but nice) to expect the competing bowls companies to come
together for their mutual benefit and I do not believe that Short Mat would be the bowls version
they would choose to market first - dream on Bob!
This lack of apparent marketing also leads me on the decline in our numbers, both indoors
and out, whatever version you play. It is concerning but perhaps as we get older and older,
fewer people now play bowls, probably in all the codes. I have mentioned before about the de-
mographics of age but the future in numbers is not as bad as it seems. There was talk about
“the baby boom” after the second world war and I’m a baby boomer from 1946. The birth rate
went above 800,000 just once in the 1940’s. However the baby boom of the 1960’s was much
bigger. From 1960 to 1971 the average birth rate was 954,000 per year including 1964 when
it went over 1,000,000 births.
So from about 2025 (ish) onwards, allowing for changes in the retirement age, huge num-
bers of people will be retiring year after year. Leaving aside problems with the NHS and State
pensions, this will leave a large number of people looking for things to do in their retirement
and all codes of bowls should benefit BUT we are looking for a decade gap or so up to then.
The negative side of this is that Bowls in all its
YES, WE CAN
forms is still be viewed as an “old man’s sport”. This is YES, WE CAN
SEE CLEARLY!
of course down to the number of older people who SEE CLEARLY!
play, who have advantages a) time on their hands, b)
Reasonable Health in a relatively undemanding sport
and c) more disposable income, the older people gen-
erally have a surfeit all three, whilst others are working
to pay mortgages and bring up children etc. etc. etc.
Also, bowls is inflicted with a disease called
“Shortarmitis”. This is where a number of bowlers have
short arms and deep pockets, so they are unable to
reach their money.