Short Mat Bowls And It's Origins

In contrast to the different outdoor versions of bowling

, short mat bowls is a game you can play any time of the year because the weather has no bearing whatsoever on whether a game can go ahead or not.

Ironically, we can probably attribute the good old British weather for the actual existence of short mat bowls as its broadly felt that the sport evolved due to players becoming fed up with the milder climate of the close season; and subsequently coming up with an indoor adaption of the game.

A common idea relating to the sports beginnings is that it was initially concocted by two South Africans who had come to Wales with their jobs. Already veterans of lawn bowling in South Africa, they were not impressed with the cooler weather and the long close season that is characteristic of British outdoor bowling.

Hoping to carry on playing bowls, they set up an indoor equivalent of the game, bowling on a length of carpet in a local village hall.

A short while after, the South Africans moved to Ireland, taking the sport with them. It was here that rules were eventually drawn up and short mat bowls was formally launched as a sport in its own right. Short mat bowls was finally brought over to England in the 1980s by the Irish and, shortly after, the English Short Mat Bowling Association was founded.

Short mat bowls has since spread further afield and many countries now play the game, not to mention Germany, Norway, Italy, Australia and India to name a few.

While similar to the well-known indoor bowling, short mat bowls has a set of rules and characteristics unique to itself, mostly due to the lesser space that was available for those initial games which were played in small village halls.

The rink that a game of short mat bowls takes place on is shorter than a standard indoor bowls rink, measured at between 40 and 45 feet in length and 6 feet wide. The actual woods though are the same full sized bowls you would expect to see in games of standard indoor bowls, crown green bowls or even flat green bowls, as the short mat bowls' various governing organisations allow a player to bowl with any of these variations.

The most obvious difference between short mat bowls and indoor bowling is probably the wooden block which is situated lengthways across the centre point of the rink. Its role is to stop bowlers from firing or striking at an opponents bowls, consequently encouraging more tactical play using the bowl's bias to curl around the block instead.

Although short mat bowls is perhaps viewed as basically a mini version of indoor and outdoor bowling, it is developing and gaining popularity with numerous competitive short mat bowls leagues becoming more and more established.

Furthermore, there is also a world championships for short mat bowls and this has seen several countries compete against one another since it first began in 1989.

As short mat bowls continues to develop as a sport in its own right, it stands to reason that more and more opportunities to get involved will become available. So if youre thinking of taking up the sport and playing short mat bowls, now is probably as good a time as any!

by: yappychap

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