WG Grace: How the 'father of cricket' played a critical role in popularising indoor bowls

In the centenary year of his death some of indoor bowls' biggest names have paid tribute to the legendary sportsman

Katie Grant
Friday 20 November 2015 23:59 GMT
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WG Grace: The founder of cricket
WG Grace: The founder of cricket

The legendary sportsman WG Grace is revered as the “father of cricket” and has been hailed as the greatest English player. But even the most dedicated fan might be surprised to discover the critical role their hero played in popularising another sport: indoor bowls.

In the centenary year of his death, this week some of the country’s biggest names in indoor bowls paid tribute to Grace by playing a match in his honour at the Crystal Palace Indoor Bowling Club, which was founded by the man himself in 1905.

As the club notes, Grace’s “autocratic nature” became his undoing in the world of cricket but “their loss was [our] gain”.

Crystal Palace was England’s – and the world’s – first recognised indoor bowling club, according to its members. Two years previously, Grace had helped form the English Bowling Association and indoor matches soon became a regular feature in south-east London.

On Thursday players from across England showed up at the club, to honour their “founding father” at the commemorative match between Crystal Palace and the English Indoor Bowling Association.

“[Grace] was instrumental in starting indoor bowls. He really promoted the game tremendously,” said Carol McGrail, president of the club.

Mrs McGrail, 66, has been playing bowls for 30 years. It began as a hobby she shared with her husband but when she was widowed 11 years ago her passion for bowls lived on.

“It helped me,” she said of the sport. “I found as a single person you can walk into a bowls club on your own, which you can’t always do elsewhere. There’s a buzz,” she added, medals hanging around her neck.

In addition to the social element, bowls is not bad exercise. Granted, players aren’t exactly sprinting across a football pitch for 90 minutes, but with championship matches lasting for 21 ends, competitors will walk up and down the green many times over the course of several hours; a number of players slung sweat towels around their neck as Thursday’s game intensified.

After 45 minutes of play, the sound of laughter had died down completely as players concentrated on the game. CPIBC were up 26 to 10, but as Peter Neighbour, 82, playing for the EIBA, remarked, “There’s still a long way to go yet.”

Over an hour later, the scoreboard showed the visitors had taken the lead with 60 points to 53, but by the time the match concluded, around three-and-a-half hours after it started, the home side had clawed their way back, with the final score standing at 115 to 101.

As the teams tucked into a three-course dinner, a toast was made to Grace, the “true visionary”. Jenny McConnell, president of the EIBA, congratulated the winning team and told attendees: “We didn’t come here to win – we just came to play the game”, to which one player harrumphed, “Speak for yourself” – a sentiment that surely would have been shared by Grace himself.

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