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Club History

INKBERROW BOWLS CLUB - A BRIEF HISTORY


During the 1920's the village of Inkberrow in the north east of W'orcestershire had a bowling green right behind the Bull's head pub (where else?). During the 1930s the green fell into disuse and bowlers had to travel a considerable distance for a game. This
situation lasted until June 1993 when the County Council made grants available to improve sports facilities in deserving villages. Inkberrow bowlers saw an opportunity to have a home based facility and a successful bid for a grant was made. The grant
together with a parish council grant and much fund raising was suffieient to build a multi-function pavilion and a 6 rink bowling green. The multi-function feature was a requirement of the Council, to allow other Inkberrow Clubs to share the use of the pavilion.
In 1996,  the Worcestershire Bowling Association President, Eddie Brockes, opened the green and brought his team to play the club. We lost! He commenied that it was a verry pleasing to welcome a new club into the Worcestershire Bowling Association; a rare event.
The club was dual gender, some say mixed, from the outset, a growing trend now. The initial membership was around 100 but has settled down to around 50. The green maintenance was largely done by volunteer members, using second hand equipmcnt at first. Nevertheless visiting clubs often commented favourably on the surface. The surrounds were bare earth to begin with but more volunteers have steadily transformed these areas into attractive gardens. This DIY approach to improvements provided the momentum behind the club's rapid development.
During the late 1990's the fixture list grew steadily. Excluding competitions we were playing around 45 friendly matches per season. In these early years there were frequent demands on club funds, but priority was always given to improving the green. To this end we used the services of a very experienced groundsman to supervise the "putting to bed', of the green at the end of the season. Until recently we have used the same adviser.
A criticism  of the pavilion was the lack of a bar so a devoted group set to in the closed season of 1999 to convert a spare kitchen, and the bar was born.  AIso in that season the club initiated a competitive league, for clubs in the county. The format is  3 mixed triples per team and if proved very popular, it was called Interberga which was the medieval name of Inkberrow.
The club's financial situation was moderate healthy as a result of income from the bar and in-house short mat competition during the closed season.
In 2005, pressure on changing room space was making it difficult for the bowlers and the committee began looking for solufions. Extending the pavilion was financially impractical so the bowls club decided to go it alone" with rooms at the side of the
green. After much discussion a wooden pitched roof structure was chossn from a local contractor. This blended well with the rural nature of the area. The cost was met by interest free loans from members supported by a grant from the Distriet CounciL The
bowlers-only changing rooms were first used forthe 2007 season and met with general approval.

(Thanks to Doug Harris, Honrary Member, September 2010 for the above)

More recently a second changing room has been added so we now have a home and away set of changing rooms. Our green has had extensive work carried out on it to improve the playing surface and we have upgarded our green watering system.  Our social activities are thriving and we are a happy bunch of bowlers.

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