Sunday 7th. July brought out blistering sun and a different day for WBT who attended the Co-operative Groups Family day at Chester Racecourse. Having been asked by the Co-operative Group to assist with their Family Day in some way WBT enlisted the help of Dales Sports Surface who shipped down a Blue Short Mat and bowls paraphernalia and WBT duly arrived at 8.30am to set up camp for the day!
With Richard Maddieson, Janice Gower, Sue Kearlsey and Merseyside No 1 Crown Greener, Danny Barwise the assembled team felt confident that we could cope with any interest in the bowling set up as we all thought that the Cricket, Activate Sports, Stoke City Football and Warrington Wolves Rugby together with the Brendan Cole dancing and cookery would take the lions share of the audience.
How wrong we were, from 10.30am right through to 4pm the bowls attracted a phenomenal interest and we were all rushed off our feet all day, surprisingly enough our biggest customers were children of all ages. With Kieron Fox from Radio Dee coming along and having a few goes and then bringing some of his Radio colleagues across for a quick impromptu blast at the target bowls it ended up with Janice having to do a live piece to radio whilst the rest of us coped with the line of customers!! Not to be outdone Richard got whisked up to the main stage later that day to have a brief chat to the crowd about WBT and Crown Green and the differences – not sure if he got it all right but the crowd seemed to enjoy it!!
Not often you see strange things on a blue rink but now WBT can boast that a Meerkat has played bowls – it was Chester Zoo’s Meerkat Mascot, and much to the amusement of the youngsters he enjoyed a few minutes of play although not such a score on the Target Bowls.
Our thanks must also go to Ray from Wrexham and his three colleagues who showed how Crown Green was played on a makeshift rink next to the short mat and during the day it was difficult to see who was waiting in which queue to play bowls!!
With no time for lunch at all, let alone a tea break, the finish at 4 pm brought an exhausted team together for the first brew since 11am!! We reckon that through the day we saw over 600 children and adults, including some in wheelchairs, between us, and if only a few of them take up the sport the day was worthwhile.