Is bowling too cheap to survive?

Memories

Bill Blackburn looks at the problem many leagues are facing with reducing number of bowlers and teams and asks if we are under-pricing bowling.

I have been reading your recent articles about the plight of bowling clubs, particularly in the Leeds area. Leeds, like many other authorities, is struggling to balance its books, mainly due to increased costs in the care sector. England’s second city, Birmingham has declared itself bankrupt.

Nearer to home we have seen the closure of several bowling clubs over the years, for a variety of reasons. But how often do we hear of the closure of golf clubs? Could it be that the majority of bowling clubs has an unreasonably cheap yearly subscription charge. I bet the annual membership fee for Huddersfield based clubs is less than the equivalent of a glass of lemonade a week.

With the cost of maintaining the green, fertiliser, winter work, plus the cost of equipment and the wage of the greenkeeper, not forgetting the surrounds and the general maintenance of the building reasonable subscriptions should be the norm, instead of reminiscing of how things used to be ‘’in the good old days.’’ 

There has also been talk of a lack of youngsters in our game. We have pictures at LBC of teams of yesteryear where all the bowlers are sporting moustaches and beards and wearing waistcoats with watchchains dangling down, they must have all been in their fifties and sixties, not a youngster in sight, so today we have progressed.

Bill Blackburn