wchester
Bowling Tragic
http://news.google.com.au/newspapers?id=wf0LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lFcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6262,5731841&dq=bowling+alley+australia&hl=en
Sorry..Title should read 300 game!
Sorry..Title should read 300 game!
The crappiest 300....I dont think so!
The "crappiest" was in reference to what the dog left on the approach.
Jason, Jason, Jason!?!?!?!?!?!
How could you not have heard that story? When i first walked into rockdale Bowl in 1979 it was about the 3rd thing I was told about the old place and that story remained until I left Sydney in 1985.
Word has it (and this part is speculation) that the dog was Clive Stewarts old dog who spent as much time at the bowl as Clive did, which was only marginally less time than I spent there. Andy McKay can confirm the event.
Quite right, I bowled there and Hurstville mostly from 1969
Clive Stewart was not a man to mess with, let alone his dog !!!
That is true too.
Clive was the Australian Heavyweight Boxing Champion in, I believe, the 60's. Had massive hands, always had 2 Manhattan Rubbers on the rack and the deepest knee bend I ever saw in a male bowler. His dog was blind in one eye and wandered around the place like he owned it LOL.
Memories
Even funnier, then! Considering I was born in 1968, it's no surprise I didn't know about it! I knew Clive. A real gentleman, unless he was thumping you!
Absolutely. You'd have to push Clive pretty damned hard to get him going. One of the great characters of Rockdale. There were some real beauties too. I was one of the lesser ratbags running around in that place! It was a real hoot to be there and Rockdale had the best lanes in Sydney, possibly Australia until they stopped oiling outside 10 at the advice of some of their lesser "better" players.
Oiling of lanes was somewhat less complicated, back then, than these days. They just dumped a few nappies, or towls, in a bucket of oil and then dragged them down the lane with an impliment that resembled a broom.
They later went up market and used a hand held spray gun...and yet Rockdale (as has been said before in this thread) was just about the highest scoring and enjoyable house to bowl in.
When I first went to Rockdale in late 1979, they had a Brunswick B90 oiler with cut brushes 5 board and out soit put out very little oil on the outside 5 boards. About the only places that matched it in those days were Woodville and Clayfield. They also stripped the lanes ONCE A WEEK!!, which was unheard of in those days, unlike once a month (whether they needed it or not LOL) in lacquer centres.
It was funny to watch that old machine go down the lanes
It left a haze spray all around it !!!!
I grew up down there and Hurstville Bowl with Brian Morton, Rick Watson, Gary Kee and Fred Allsopp
Clive was a friend of mine for many years
Great days !!!!