Memories
We recently provided an updated photo record of the Blackpool Waterloo, the Mecca of crown green bowling for over 100 years, which was a sorry outcome from a relationship breakdown between the hotel group owners and the BCGBA. Neither come out with any degree of satisfaction from this breakdown which started in 2003 as related in this press report from that time.
West Lancashire Evening Gazette 15 February 2003
This year’s Champion Of Champions Trophy - a mainstay of the Blackpool crown green bowling calendar for decades - could be the last ever staged at the Waterloo Hotel. Waterloo bowls manager Jim Parker is involved in a row with the Trophy organisers, the British Crown Green Bowling Association, who hire the venue for the day. Parker, clearly wanting to run the Waterloo his way after only a few months in charge, is threatening to pull the plug on the Association’s Champions competition at the Waterloo after this year, and stage a rival event instead in 2004.
The Champion Of Champions features winners of all the major crown green tournaments in the country, who qualify to play off for the title, played out in a knockout final at Blackpool. But the Association want to make radical changes to the way the elite field is decided. Parker said: “What British Crown Green have told me is that they want to have only one player qualifying from a single venue - in the past there have been two qualifiers from the Waterloo, the winner of the Spring tournament and the winner of the Autumn competition. “It is so petty - it means that a bowler can qualify for the Champion Of Champions by winning a competition in which there were only 64 players, yet they are saying that the Waterloo Spring winner, which has a field of 512, can't get in. “It is farcical - if bowls was like golf and they had ‘majors’, the five that most people in the game would nominate are the Spring and Autumn Waterloos, the two Isle Of Man events and the All-England.”
Parker claims the Association made a profit of £6,000 on last year’s Champion Of Champions. Parker said: “This year we will be asking 20 per cent of the gate money from the Champion Of Champions. “Next year, we may well decide that the Champion Of Champions will no longer be held at the Waterloo, and we will put on another event on the same day, which we are sure would be a very popular counter-attraction.” Parker may even nominate the winner of the Spring event for the Champion Of Champions, and not the Autumn Waterloo, a move which would certainly put the cat among the pigeons.
A spokesman for the British Crown Green Bowling Association was unavailable for comment. Meantime, Parker has carried out his pledge to up the first prize money for this year’s Waterloo autumn event to £3,000, putting it back on a par with the main Isle Of Man festival. Last year when Stan Frith won the coveted trophy, he pocketed £1,750. Parker has raised the entry fee to a tenner and re-structured the overall prize money to ensure the £3,000 top prize. Bowlers at the lower end of the scale will not be forgotten, with the winner of three matches guaranteed £25 and a player successful in four matches, £lOO.
Parker is mystified at the shortage of entries for the two main Waterloo events from Blackpool and Fylde bowlers, and has given local players an urgent hurry-up call to act before it’s too late. He said: “I don’t think there will be any problem filling the Spring Waterloo, the final of which takes place on May 5. “We are already four-fifths full already, but I can’t understand why there are so few entries from around here.” The main Waterloo will take 1,024 bowlers, all vying for the honour of winning the most soughtafter title in the sport. From this year, it will no longer be a handicap - everyone will start on level terms, and matches will go to a full 21-up from 0-0.
Extensive work has been done on the South Shore green over the winter, involving turf experts who have undertaken a similar job on major football grounds like Old Trafford, home of Manchester Unit- Not so many weeks ago, the most famous playing surface in the sport resembled a ploughed field, but now the transformation has been complete. Bowls manager Parker said: “The idea is to get the green back into the kind of pristine condition that everyone expects of the Waterloo.”
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