Crown Green Bowling Think it’s a Game for Old Men….. Think Again

Crown Green Bowling We are a year round Sports Club and Social Club located in Longton Lancashire. Although we were initially formed over 90 years ago to promote the sport of Crown Green Bowling and Tennis, we do a lot more now. We are always on the lookout for new sports to get involved in or old ones we that we used to to do and for one reason or another no longer do. Although the Crown Green Bowling closes for 2 months of the year (January & February) to allow for planned maintenance, The boules pistes are available all year round as of course the Snooker is.

Crown Green Bowls

A Crown Green is a square lawn slightly higher in the middle than at the edges and play is conducted all over the lawn in any direction making for a great deal more variety than the flat green game. The game has always been associated more with pubs and taverns than Lawn Green bowls and although it does not have the enormous popularity of the flat green game, it thrives very happily within its home base of the North of England and the North West Midlands. Play is almost always singles and each player bowls just two bowls each end.  The winner of each turn can play the jack in any direction and at any reasonable distance within the lawn boundary which is a ditch.  Some players are best at bowling across the hump, others along the sloping side, some prefer short distances, others long and so many additional tactical complexities are introduced by the unusual lawn.  Watching the multiple games occurring in all directions at once across a crown green bowling lawn is an spectating experience worth seeking out.  Somehow, the individual games manage to intersect and cross over each other without any adverse consequences! Crown Green Bowls is a well organised sport arranged on a county basis. Individual clubs, often affiliated to pubs form teams that compete in "midweek" leagues that are grassroots of the sport and, at the next strata up, counties hold their own competitions. Crown Green Inter-County bowls matches date back to 1893 when Yorkshire and the combined county of Lancashire & Cheshire began playing friendly matches and this tradition has carried on until the present day, with the British Crown Green Bowls Association taking over the organisation of the competition in 1908. A complete history of this and other competitions can be found on the BCGBA site.  Longton VM Recreation Ground  was originally bought by the people of Longton to be used in future for Longton and surrounding areas. So as you most likely part own it, don’t you think it’s time you used it?