Fifty Clubs Need a Smack

What with the fuss over stupid sports, I thought there was a few that had got it right.

And there are plenty of stupid sports.

Grown men driving cars in circles? Hardly a sport!

Banging a ball about with a metal stick, which also doubles as a great way to smack up your husband’s car when he’s been willingly led astray at the local strip club? Don’t make me laugh!

Cycling? Might as well name in the Inter-Pharmaceutical-Company Championship and be done with it.

Obviously there are a few worthy sports. Australian Rules Football is in full swing here and it is a fine distraction.

But what is the defining characteristic of a good sport? Obviously, it’s a tea break.

This is why cricket is the greatest sport of all. Not one, but two breaks in each day of a five day match. That’s five lunches, five tea breaks, 10 cups of tea.

There is a cricket derivative called baseball. You may have heard of it. They changed it by taking away the tea breaks and changing the bat for something that looks like a mutant zucchini. It’s rubbish – it’ll never catch on. The last 100 times they held the “World Series” no-one from a single overseas country turned up.  QED.

But we can’t all play cricket, as it involves a bit of running here and there and some of us, such as the more traditionally-built, the elderly or the congenitally lazy just can’t be having with that sort of lark.

So an alternative is the fine sport of Lawn Bowls. It’s like snooker in 3D, except you’ve shrunk a bit and you’re on the table. It is an incredibly skilled sport, and one where skill can win over youthful exuberance or huge physical stature.

It’s a bit like the Italian bocce without the players laying on the ground, holding their legs and demanding a free shot, or the French petanque without the arguments.

There are 85 clubs playing Pennant bowls in Adelaide. There are Wednesday Leagues and Thursday Leagues and Weekend Leagues and many divisions. Players’ ages range from 16 to over 100.

Now, there are social bowls, which is the same sport, but without the trophy. It’s a more relaxed form, not so much of the high stakes drama and tension.

In a shocking move, the Pennant Leagues in Adelaide have scrapped the tea break.

OUTRAGEOUS! Before you gather up your pitchforks to storm Bowls SA’s headquarters, let me tell you the flim-flam reason given : To make Pennant Bowls different to social bowls.

WHAT A CROCK! Denying people who may be over 100 years old* fifteen minutes for a cuppa and a Tim Tam** is an offence against all that is decent in the world.

And it appears, 50 out of the 85 clubs voted for this at a recent meeting.

Well, the players are up in arms! They won’t stand for this, with or without their zimmer frames. It might take them a while, but they will stand up and be counted.

I’ll keep you posted, from here at the front lines. It won’t be pretty, but nothing worth saving was ever easy.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Not on my watch.