Home   Sport   Article

World Bowls Championship and its Aberdeenshire links


By Grant Milne

Easier access to your trusted, local news. Subscribe to a digital package and support local news publishing.



Click here to sign up to our free newsletters!

THE WORLD Indoor Bowls Championships have become a fixture of January daytime TV, with Garioch's Colin Banks even making a fleeting appearance in this year's series.

However the Championships can lay claim to Aberdeenshire roots.

The first ever official World Championships were held in Coatbridge in 1979, and within days saw television ratings go through the roof due to the snowy conditions that led to a wipeout of the entire football and racing card.

BBC's main Saturday sports programme, Grandstand, found themselves with almost nothing to send their live reporters to – except the bowls.

A couple of years earlier, the then-director of leisure at Monklands District Council, Mike Barron, an extremely keen bowls enthusiast, had persuaded the BBC's head of sport to trial a broadcast of a 'Home Nations' tournament.

Mr Barron is better known in Garioch hemispheres for his weekly Advertiser bowls round-up, and also having formerly served as chief executive of Gordon District Council.

His love for the game was passed down to him by his Alford-based parents who were local green champions.

He was a driving force behind the construction of the Garioch Indoor Bowling arena, but Mike believed that bowls could have much more prominence in British sport among the public - if the powers of the media world could swing it that way.

After the success of the Home Nations event, leading British players and the bowls champions of USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong were invited to contest the World Championships.

According to an article which appeared in World Bowls magazine earlier this month, up to 40 different companies were contacted to sponsor the event which was estimated to cost £6,500 (around £33,000 today) to hold.

Coatbridge, in the ancient parish of Monklands, seemed a suitable place to host the first Championships with a capacity of near-500 spectators.

England's David Bryant lived up to his reputation as favourite for the inaugural edition (which only featured a Men's Singles event) defeating Philip Chok of Hong Kong in the final.

It was an instant hit.

By 1983, tickets for the final stages were completely sold out in advance as the BBC agreed to extend the tournament to five days to allow for up to 16 hours of live broadcast time.

This incredible rise in interest saw the World Indoor Bowls Council formed that same year, with prize money introduced for the first time, as winner Scotsman Bob Sutherland received half of a total of £8,000 prize pot.

In 1986, Coatbridge said its goodbyes to the World Championships as the WIBC wilted to BBC pressure to move the event to London, bouncing around venues until it settled at its current home at Potter's Resort in East Anglia.


Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More