Читать книгу Sex & Bowls & Rock and Roll: How I Swapped My Rock Dreams for Village Greens - Alex Marsh - Страница 10

Lord’s.

Nigel is at Lord’s.

So much for well-drilled trios and mutual respect and support. Pissing off to watch the West Indies and upsetting the delicate balance of the block like this. I haven’t even donned my deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes yet, and already I am thinking negative thoughts about the game. I shake my head and curse my stupidity, dragging myself back into the Zone.

The first home match is always an interesting one. Let’s get some points on the board.

Immaculate, fine grass, mown lovingly once lengthways and then once on the traverse, to create a geometric criss-cross of stripes that makes you want to hug the ground or at the very least stroke it with your cheek. Manicured borders and a white picket fence, with a wooden pavilion constructed simply but in the Edwardian style, with a small verandah. Three elderly men, rooted to the same seats since time immemorial, sit watching the play knowledgeably, smoking clay pipes, whilst a couple of wives diligently cut the crusts off ham and cucumber sandwiches.

I would imagine that some bowls clubs are like this. As for us, we sit outside the draughty builders’ demountable hut that serves as our rain shelter and toilet, waiting for Howard to allocate the score cards for this agricultural square of land. You need a score card before you can move on to the ‘have a good game’s, as this tells you which rink that you’ll be playing on and against whom – and there’s not much you can do until you know that.

This is the key to home advantage. It’s nothing to do with being comfortable in your surroundings, or having a large crowd to roar you on. It’s certainly been a bit less since we were asked to vacate the nice green beside the pub. It’s the fact that by rights it should take the opposition three or four ends to work out that there’s a slight slope up and down, and that when bowling forehand on the uphill you need no angle at all.

Big Andy checks the card. Three – we have been given rink three. The one with the most pronounced hump three-quarters of the way on the downhill, where the skill is to attempt to bring the wood to a halt just on the prow where the grass is barest, so that it might roll gently down the other side vaguely towards the cott. We stroll across the green, up and down, up and down its undulations until we reach the mat. Light brown patches, dark green patches.

But it doesn’t matter.

The Stones, the Beatles, The Who – all the great records from the golden age were recorded on primitive equipment. The Kinks had a cheap guitar and a broken amplifier, and produced ‘You Really Got Me’, whilst even well into the seventies, Pink Floyd were using Sellotape to stick together fragments of master tape to create ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. But then what happened? Pristine, flat, mown criss-cross stripe technology brought us Jean-Michel Jarre and Cher doing ‘Believe’. The idea that rough-and-ready is by definition not acceptable is not something that needs necessarily to be brought to bowls.

EBA-affiliated greens generally benefit from the slickest production techniques. The English Bowling Association is the national governing body for bowls, although affiliation is voluntary and the association has nothing to do with our own club. We play very occasionally on an EBA green, and the difference is palpable – formal notices, honours boards, professional greenkeepers and flat, flat, flat. It is nice, but alarmingly favours the better bowlers, and most of us are just as happy with a flattish piece of grass and the services of a bloke with a mower.

I remove my Stella Artois beer towel from my bag and wipe my wood with pride.

If non-believers know one historical fact about bowls, it’s that Sir Francis Drake refused to prematurely curtail his game, preferring to complete the final end before engaging and defeating the Spanish Armada. There’s no firm evidence that this is anything other than a patriotic tale, although to anybody who’s been forced by a sadistic enthusiast to play on through howling gales, squalls and electrical storms the story does have the ring of truth about it.

‘We still have time to finish the game and to thrash the Spaniards too!’ is the quote that’s cited. One suspects that, in the remote event that this episode did actually take place, Drake was fortunate that we didn’t go on to lose. Still, it is a good legend, and ‘Drake’s Pride’ is now a well-known brand of wood and bowls equipment, endorsed by – among others – Short Tony.

Drake was a well-to-do sort but when it came to the lower classes, bowls was illegal in England – right up until the midnineteenth century. Henry VIII had worried that the sport would distract workers from their jobs; that they would piss about playing bowls instead of doing an honest hard day’s work. How things change. Subsequent rulers agreed with him, and bowls went underground – becoming known as a sport for drunkards, layabouts and vagabonds, a sport during which violence might occur at any minute. We’ve had none of that, although we did see a little undercurrent of tension at an away match a couple of years back, when the bowls people clashed with a folk club.

It’s an odd concept now, but pick any era, and you’ll find an interest of the common people that the establishment has identified as a threat. Marilyn Manson, rave music, the Sex Pistols – even the Beatles and the Stones. For a few hundred years, this perceived threat was bowls. The game might be the new rock and roll – but once it was more than that. It was too rock and roll.

Jason has been given Nigel’s place for the evening.

He’s only just left college, which makes him my generation if you look at the big picture, although clearly I am senior to him in life experience. It’s great to see fellow young people playing, let alone taking the important skipper’s role. We shared a block together a couple of years ago when I played in the Monday league, and hopefully have a bit of a rapport. It’s a big responsibility for a youngster, and I’m looking forward to giving him the benefit of my knowledge – be it in hints and tips, or just by getting those good shots in first to take the pressure off him and to allow his game to settle down naturally.

‘Have a good game.’

The away team always bowls first, so I have a chance to lurk behind their lead as he launches his first wood from the mat. Frankly, it is not a good wood – fifteen degrees wider than the optimum angle, and far too hard, coming to rest – I estimate – six feet behind the cott. He grins ruefully, and I give him a sympathetic smile.

Having carefully studied the path of his wood, I step up to take my own. This sets off at about fifteen degrees wider than the optimum angle and I have put too much pace on it – it comes to rest – I estimate – eight feet behind the cott.

‘That’s a good start!’ calls Jason. ‘Just take a little bit off it, and a bit narrower!’

I give him a nod. I am frustrated with myself, but it is good that the boy’s nerves aren’t getting to him too much – keeping the volume up is a key skill for any skipper, and I wouldn’t want him to feel that he couldn’t pipe up to offer me advice.

I take some pace off my second wood, but unfortunately miscalculate the angle adjustment, bowling it pretty well straight at the cott. The natural curve of the wood consequently takes it far to the left, drifting well out of contention for anything. I am cross.

‘Absolutely perfect length!’ calls Jason. ‘Couldn’t be a better length!’

Big Andy’s woods cluster round the cott closer than mine – but he has had the benefit of being able to lurk behind me and watch for the right trajectory. As we cross, I make sure to buttonhole Jason to pass on some important words. ‘Don’t forget it’s slightly downhill,’ I say. ‘Just drop it in there, and you’ll be fine.’

Jason’s two woods drop in utterly adjacent to the cott. Two up. It’s good that he’s got a bit of luck so early. Settle the nerves.

It’s such a simple and ancient sport that it seems that systematic codification has never really taken hold. Not round our way, anyway. I mean, I’m sure there’s a rule book somewhere that the EBA or World Bowls or Barry Hearn or somebody has come up with – but I don’t know anybody who’s read it. ‘Get as close to the white one as possible, and take it in turns.’ Nobody has needed to demand clarification of the dozens of ways that you might get out, or be caught offside, or be adjudged to be interfering with the scrum.

Every rule I have seen has really been a regulation. Where exactly the mat should be placed; the distance away from the cott that a wood must rest within before it can be counted as a score; what happens if you roll the cott too short. I believe that there was a letter once circulated to the league, reminding clubs to ensure that people wore the requisite deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes. But it’s not a game for pedants, for jobsworths or the terminally anal.

‘He’s a fine young player, that one is,’ comments an opponent, as Jason’s final wood takes a wick sideways and drops in to save two points.

He’s right. Annoyingly, Jason is better than me. I am not quite sure how this has happened. When we first started playing, we were much of a muchness. Suddenly, he is streets ahead. Perhaps he has had coaching, or secret practice, or hypnotism.

It hadn’t occurred to me, when I had played those first couple of games, that I might not be much good. I had assumed that it would be the sort of sport that you really only needed to turn up to every week. I was never a natural footballer or runner or cricketer or tennis player – but millions of people aren’t. Now it’s a bit disappointing to start bracketing bowls into that mix. But I can try. I have always been a trier.

We lose by one single point.

I can’t help reflecting that this is my fault as I stuff my deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes into the burgundy bowls bag. Despite my energy and enthusiasm and trying, I have not had a good start to the season. Jason, who has consistently played a blinder, tells me not to worry.

‘Bah,’ is my considered reply.

Perhaps I am being a bit hard on myself. Form, they say, is temporary – whereas class is permanent. It is probably something to do with the Zone. Nigel! That’s it! It is all Nigel’s fault for missing a game, and thus disturbing the fragile ecosystem that is a bowls block. I know he’s the skipper and everything, but next time I shall have a strong word with him about his commitment.