10-pin bowlers in limbo & travelling to Jersey to train

Saturday 31 March 2018

Guernsey's 10 pin bowling team have found themselves with no where to train for national competitions since the island's MFA Bowl closed last August.

The club used to have competition nights, training sessions and other events at the bowl, and also stored their equipment there.

And while it was independent from the Bowl as a business, its closure has left the team with no where on island to train, as Guernsey has not got another full length bowling alley.

Robin Johns, Secretary of the Guernsey Ten Pin Bowling Association said there were still around 12 of them in the club, but they were having to travel over to Jersey to practice for national competitions they wanted to compete in.

"There is still about a dozen of us playing locally, and four of us are getting ready to compete next month, and some more of us are going to another event in Wales - the problem is there is no where on island for us to actually get ready," he said.

"We have been trying to get ourselves over to Jersey to play every 10 to 12 weeks, but the cost of that is very high, especially as we have to take all of our equipment back and forth every time." 

The team are also going to be affected when it comes to the Island Games next year. They are planning to send a team to the 2019 games, which will be the second to include bowling, but will face the same practice restrictions.

Above: The Bowl has been abandoned apart from the flats above it since it closed in August. Recently there has been a spate of vehicle fires in the carpark behind it, so police have heightened patrols in the area.

When the Bowl did shut, it was unexpected to everyone in the island including the bowling alley's staff - and while some had seen the large decline in the business and its service, the timing of the closure came before many had guessed.

The bowling club's members had to go to the site to clear out all of their belongings from their lockers before the entire building was sealed off.

At the time, members did float the idea of looking to purchase the building themselves, or set up an alternative. However Mr Johns said nothing of detail ever came from that. "We certainly thought about it and spoke about it a lot at the time, but the cost would of couse be the issue," he said.

"It's a shame, MFA have run down nearly every alley they purchased, and Guernsey was no different. So our future is up in the air at the moment - we are in limbo, so to speak."