Bowling News
Our annual count up of teams in 17 local leagues shows the continuing decline in numbers with three well-established competitions falling to their lowest ever level and in serious threat of struggling to retain sufficient numbers to ensure their ongoing presence.
First the good news. Two Monday afternoon competitions have seen improvements in team numbers with the Huddersfield Veterans 6-Man League and the Heavy Woollen Afternoon League both recording increases. The Veterans League showing a 50% increase since 2019 after gradually relaxing their qualifying rules over the last 6 years enabling more bowlers to play in both their 10-man and 6-man competitions.
Numbers-wise the Huddersfield Winter League continues to set the pace with 10 new teams in the last year to make it a 357% increase since the League was first established in 2020 with 14 teams. Another four leagues have steadied the decline with no change in the team numbers since last year but eight other leagues have suffered more losses with the Colne Valley League the worst affected. They have lost three more teams this year leaving them with just two divisions with eight teams in each. The Heavy Woollen League is even worse off with only 11 teams left in a single division after losing another team this year.
The Huddersfield Saturday League has lost another 5 teams this year which takes their total 20 teams lost since before Covid. That means they have lost a quarter of their teams in the last 6 years despite reducing the number of bowlers in a team and are now down to 60 teams in total from the 80 that formed the League in 2019. The Binns Cup competition is a casualty of that fact with the League now down to 5 Divisions/Cups.
The two tables below showing the extent of the problem and the continuing demise of league bowling in the area. Table 1 provides a quick look at the latest set of figures listing the number of teams in each of the 17 leagues. That total is then compared against the previous year's total and also compared against the totals in the pre-Covid year of 2019. That 6 year gap has been a devastating period for local leagues. The closing down of the Heavy Woollen Parks League being the fore-runner to Kirklees withdrawing support for the ongoing upkeep of Council-held bowling greens.
Table 2 provides the full year-by-year team numbers in each of the 17 Leagues in the Huddersfield area. There were already worrying trends emerging before the Covid year of 2020 when all summer bowling was cancelled. Many leagues were slow to re-establish team numbers after 2020 and in fact only 3 of the 17 leagues have seen an increase in team numbers compared with 2019.
As local bowling gets restarted for the 2025 summer season next week I wonder how many of those teams are going to be another missing statistic in next year's tables.
NC = No competition
Apart from the Winter League which is a new League , the overall picture is one of a steady decline which looks to continue for the foreseeable future.
Can this decline be reversed? I tend to think not as most of us are happy to plod on and basically are against change and not prepared to do anything to attract new bowlers. This lack of doing anything extends to doing jobs , being an active committee member etc.
Just my views.
Philip of Lindley