Bowls and Bowling. Encyclopedia of World Sport

The terms “bowling” and “bowls” refer to a series of
loosely related sports that have been adapted and refined to such an extent that many of their common origins are no longer obvious.The games’most common element is the use of a heavy ball that is tossed or rolled
underarm to reach its target. That is the “bowl” itself—
it is the action that is “bowling.” Success is measured
either by the bowl’s proximity to a target or by knocking
standing targets over. These sports come from all over
the world and have been shaped by much transplanting
and adaptation. In some areas, several types of bowling
now exist side by side, with seasonal overlaps. Bowling is
practiced both competitively and for recreation.
History
As with other ball games, the origins of bowling have
been traced to ancient Egypt, where tombs of circa 500
B.C.E. contained simple bowling implements. There are
scattered classical references, but the game’s key developments go back to late-medieval Europe as part of
rural folk festivals.
Generally, it was the later impact of industrialization and urban life that prompted the emergence of many
modern bowling games. Traditional folk activities were
then refined, changed, and codified as they were selected to meet the leisure needs of the new bourgeoisie.
The process of bowling’s modernization has been
largely dominated by Europe and North America, although many less well-recorded ethnic versions probably survive outside those areas. They occur in three
main broad categories: thrown bowls with Latin-European origins; rolled bowls from the British tradition;
and skittle/pin games adapted by North Americans
from older European models. Each variety also uses a
different playing surface—in thrown balls, sand or
gravel; in British bowls, grass or artificial copies; in pin
games, wooden lanes.
Rules and Play
The Latin-European Tradition: Bocce and
Pétanque/Boule
Italy and France have produced two main games, codified relatively recently, with broad similarities. They are
predominantly open-air activities, played on long, rectangular pitches originally improvised from rough village spaces during hot, dry summers. These have surfaces of raked sand or gravel on which the tossed balls
fall and stick, rather than roll. Both games are still often played informally in the village and cafe tradition
by men of all ages, but they have now acquired national
and international competitive networks and, in many
cases, dedicated indoor facilities that allow for yearround play in urban areas and participation by women
and children.
Bocce (literally “bowls”) is the Italian variant of
bowling.Almost inevitably it is claimed to go at least as
far back as classical Rome, with Emperor Augustus and
others cited as keen players. By the Middle Ages bowling had become rather more popular and intensely localized, with many regional variations in style and
rules. Since about 1900 it has paralleled the industrialization of Italy with organization and partial standardization, which has transformed the humble game into
sport.
Bocce uses an “alley” or “rink” approximately 18.3
meters long by 2.4 meters wide (60 feet by 8 feet). Increasingly, common indoor facilities provide several of
these side by side, as do dedicated areas found in many
public parks. The small target ball, the pallino, is then
tossed from one end and must land at least 11/4 meters
(5 feet) beyond the peg. Each player then aims to throw
his bowl, which is heavier than the pallino, as close as
possible to the target.
Italy stages regional competitions, reinforcing the
country’s strong regional rivalries. International play is
largely limited to Italy and France, which occasionally
compete at adult and juvenile levels in grandly titled
tournaments.With its peasant origins, it remains maledominated, although a small number of women play.
Despite its growing complexity, its appeal lies in its being a “sport simpatico e popolare,” in the words of a recent enthusiast—something essentially part of an Italian summer.
The quintessentially French pétanque, or boule, has
many similarities to bocce. It grew out of regional peasant cultures and was adapted for the needs of a cafe society. The game has been codified and organized, although it is probably more widely followed for
recreational rather than competitive purposes. It has
attracted a significantly wider international following
than bocce has achieved.
Pétanque’s origins lie in southern France, where it
emerged as “jeu provençal”; it has much in common
with that game, which still survives as a minority interest. However, boule players throw from a stationary
position without the short run-up common to jeu and
bocce. The word pétanque is an amalgam of two French words meaning “feet tied together”—a fanciful
description of the standing throw.
A small wooden target, the cochonnet, is thrown
about 6 to 10 meters (20 to 33 feet), after which players
throw their balls so they come to rest as close to the
target as possible. Skill in bypassing an opponent is
highly regarded.
Outdoors, like bocce, pétanque’s season lasts from
April to October, but the game has found a growing
winter popularity in France where it is often played in
covered equestrian centers whose rough riding surfaces offer ideal playing fields. Although its popularity
depends very heavily on a warm and relaxed French
cafe and village image, pétanque has grown considerably both as an urban and an exported activity in recent decades. It remains male-dominated in France,
but women and children play in some of the countries
in which it has been enthusiastically adopted. The
French created a Fédération Française de Pétanque et
Jeu Provençal in 1945 and an international federation
later. The sport eventually spread to other parts of
mainland Europe, including Belgium, Switzerland, and
Spain, and to North Africa, the United States, and
China. World championships have been organized
since 1959, with France dominating them. The British
started a national Open Championship in 1986.
Bowls: The British Contribution
Rolling wooden bowls toward a jack has been practiced
in Britain since the early Middle Ages. Southampton
claims to have the oldest continually played-over greens,
dating from the 1290s.It was the lowland Scots who kept
up and refined the tradition of bowls, playing on flat,
seaside turf adjoining their golf links. A Scot, W. W.
Mitchell of Glasgow, first codified the rules in 1849.
Thereafter, the game was reintroduced to England and
began a spate of growth that took it overseas as well.
In England, bowls was soon divided into two main
types. Both variants use specially prepared grass
greens, although one is now much influenced by artificial and indoor facilities. The culturally dominant form,
and the most adaptable to overseas and indoor play, has
been the Lawn, or Flat, Green code. The other variant,
Crown Green, uses a deliberately contoured area that is
difficult to replicate with indoor artificial surfaces.
Lawn bowls has emphasized its amateur purity, although many of its star players in recent decades have
had commercial links with the production and retailing of bowls services and products. The game is played
on a flat square of between 31 and 41 meters (33 and 44
yards) that is usually divided into rinks up to 5 1/2 meters (18–19 feet) wide, so that several matches can go
on simultaneously. The Crown Green may be either
square or rectangular, but must be a minimum of 25
meters (30 yards) wide. It usually rises to a central
crown up to 35 centimeters (14 inches) high and the
surface may be irregular. The Lawn jack (target) is
white and some 6.4 centimeters (217/32) inches in diameter; the Crown jack is marginally smaller. Both
variations use bowls that were originally turned from
heavy woods, but rubber and then synthetic composites became much more common in the 20th century.
Players normally have a set of four bowls each and
scoring depends on proximity to the jack. As the game
has become more formalized, strict dress codes have
appeared.What was once a sign of class distinction still
serves to differentiate between the casual bowler playing on a municipally owned green and membership in
a private club.
As bowls’ popularity grew, so did the complexity of
its organization. A web of regulatory bodies emerged,
reflecting both rival games and tensions within them.
Essentially, for the two codes of play, there are three
governing organizations: two for the Lawn game and
one for Crown.
Crown bowls has developed similarly, but in ways
that reflect its strong regional roots in the north of England and the major role played in its development by
professionals and semiprofessionals.
The maleness of both varieties of bowls was taken
for granted in the early years of its popularity, and the
role of women was restricted to making refreshments
at tournaments. By the end of World War I, however, female interest in the game had grown, at least among
the middle classes, and a parallel women’s game
emerged. This has been largely restricted to the Lawn
code, although a small number of women play Crown
bowls. In turn, this led to two national organizations
matching the men’s. The English Women’s Bowling Association was founded in 1931, to be followed by the
English Women’s Bowling Federation. Both organize
national tournaments. Women’s play still tends to be
largely segregated, but this is exacerbated in the eyes of
many by dress codes that seem archaic at the end of the
20th century—particularly regarding the shape of the
hats the women invariably wear. It has, however, appealed much more readily to all ages than the men’s
games did originally and has a strong juvenile element
as well as a number of mother-daughter tournament
teams. Both men’s and women’s associations now have
links with a body that unites the representative groups
from the four nations of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland) in the British Isles Bowls
Council, formed in 1962.
Lawn Green in particular served another purpose.
It became another of the bonding agencies that spread
throughout the British Empire and the Commonwealth. Expatriates took it with them to Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, Africa, and onward. All the governing
bodies are linked by the International Bowling Board,
formed in 1905, which oversees the game throughout
the world.
Bowls’ greatest limitation has been its role as a seasonal game. Although that may have fit the requirements of preindustrial society, its seasonal nature has
been at odds with growing urban demands for yearround participation. The answers have been the significant growth of indoor play, benefiting from artificial
light and protection from the weather, and sharing facilities with other games. It remained a distinctly eccentric pursuit until the 1960s when a boom started
that has continued since, but the phenomenon was
largely confined to the south of England until the later
1980s. Television has played a major role in increasing
bowls’ popularity by enhancing the sense of competition. This has accompanied a steady rise in the number
of local leisure center buildings with multiuse halls.
The development of portable artificial surfaces using
plastic-based “grasses” has made it possible to produce
indoor rinks with varying characteristics suitable to
the level of play. It has proved easier for Lawn than
Crown play to be replicated indoors.
Ten-Pin Bowling and the Americanization of Skittles
Skittles shares similar claims of antiquity as other
forms of bowls, but is said to have emerged fully in the
late Middle Ages when German parishioners were persuaded to roll stones against wooden clubs set up to
represent the forces of evil. Martin Luther is said to
have played and to have fixed the number of skittles at
nine. Variants were played in England, one version of
which used a wooden disk, the “cheese,” instead of
stones or balls. As it developed, European skittles became closely identified with recreational drinking, and
was often played in alleys erected alongside inns. It accompanied European settlers to the New World, with
Dutch, German, and British migrants playing their own
regional versions. Outdoor games in places such as
New York City’s Battery Park were increasingly superseded by indoor play, but there was also a great deal of
gambling, which led many state authorities to ban the
pin games. There is a compelling but unproved legend
that the change from nine to ten pins was a cunning
way around that prohibition. Whatever the case, the
new game achieved growing popularity throughout the
United States.
Bowling became a popular activity in many new
suburban neighborhoods but often was a sport mainly
for working-class men. Much of that changed in the
1950s, when the game was mechanized with automated
clearing and restacking of the fallen pins. The spread of
the automobile and high levels of plant investment in
suburban alleys along with refreshment facilities made
it attractive to teenagers of both sexes, women, and
families. By then, bowling had become just as important for pleasure as for organized competition. It also
became a symbol of exportable American culture to
other parts of the world, especially where U.S. forces
had bases during the cold war decades. The game was
exported to Britain by the 1960s, and a British Ten-Pin
Bowling Association was formed in 1961. It has enjoyed
a steady resurgence there since the 1980s, and there are
now some 40,000 players. Some European cities have
also acquired bowling alleys, but perhaps the greatest
growth spurt has been in Japan, where a 504-lane
Tokyo site was long claimed to be the world’s largest.
Individuals or small teams (the most popular for
competitive play is five) play on two of the single lanes
into which the building is divided. These have a highly
polished wooden floor that requires special shoes and
offers least resistance to the moving bowls. Each lane is
18.3 meters (60 feet) long by 1.1 meter (3 feet, 6 inches)
wide.At the other end stand the ten bottle-shaped pins,
38.1 centimeters (15 inches) tall and weighing between
1.53 and 1.65 kilograms (3 pounds, 6 ounces and 3
pounds, 10 ounces). They are usually made of maple
and are placed on marks in a three-foot triangle with
its apex toward the player. The bowls (balls) vary in
size, according to the skills and strength of the player.
Many players compete only with friends, but most
rinks have locally sponsored leagues representing various community and commercial associations. Bowling
rules were standardized by the American Bowling Congress (ABC) formed in 1895. A Women’s International
Bowling Congress (WIBC) appeared in 1916. Both were
linked until 1939 with the International Bowling Association (IBA) but are now governed by the Fédération
Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ), founded in 1951.
The games’ variations have been genuinely international—many winners in the various team events have
come from outside the United States.The WIBC has also
organized annual championships since it was founded,
and these have attracted around 80,000 entrants in recent decades. In 1961 the WIBC inaugurated the Queen’s Tournament and offered prize money. In addition, a male professional circuit emerged with some
2,000 players, forming a Professional Bowler’s Association in 1958. A Professional Women’s Bowling Association appeared in 1959. Frequently televised, professional matches indicate the commercial importance of
a game that is said to attract some 7 million bowlers in
organized U.S. leagues alone. These leagues have been
linked since 1943 by the National Bowling Council,
which represents commercial interests as well as players. This, in turn, has fostered various juvenile organizations, such as the Young American Bowling Alliance,
formed in 1982, which encourages competitive collegiate bowling. Beyond these associations, at least 80
million Americans are said to play at least once a year.
Ten-pin has come to dominate the North American
bowling scene, but there are other developments of the
older immigrant import that frequently share the standard facilities. Candlepin, popular in the eastern United
States, uses cylindrical pins that taper at both ends. A
frame consists of three balls. Another variant, duckpins, was developed by two professional baseball players, Wilbert Robinson and John J. McGraw, at a bowling
alley they owned jointly. Duckpins also has a three-ball
frame. In the United States—especially in its stronghold, New England—duckpins is organized by the National Duck Pin Bowling Congress, founded in 1927.
The most important of the alternatives to ten-pin
appeared just across the U.S. border in Canada before
World War I, when Thomas J. Ryan, a Toronto businessperson, developed a less-demanding and faster
version of the game. His version, called Canadian
Fivepin, uses five smaller pins in a standard alley. The
game caught on rapidly in Canada among leagues and
both sexes. Rules were formalized after the foundation
of a Canadian Bowling Congress in 1926 that today
presides over 20,000 leagues with more than 600,000
players.
More recently, many bowling games have received
heavy media attention. Television’s sharp focus on the
games’ intimacy and restricted playing space has given
them a new role in the world of sports and more fans
than their previously localized nature had attracted.
This has also done a great deal to increase participation in games whose equipment and space requirements are relatively simple.
—JOHN LOWERSON
Bibliography: Freeman, Garth. (1987) Petanque: The French
Game of Bowls. Leatherhead, UK: Carreau Press. Harrison, Henry. (1988) Play the Game: Ten Pin Bowling. London: Ward Lock. Lowerson, John. (1993) Sport and the
English Middle Classes, 1870–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Martin, Joan L., Ruth E. Tandy,
and Charlene Agne-Traub. (1994) Bowling. Madison, WI:
William C. Brown and Benchmark. Phillips, Keith, ed.
(1990) The New BBC of Bowls. London: BBC.

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *