The canvas bag is weighty, betraying my relative novice status with its clean newness. It contains my four bowls (or ‘woods’, as we bowls people know them), an old beer towel for wiping purposes and some deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes. You have to have four woods, even though you only ever use two, as otherwise the other bowlers will laugh at you and think that you are some sort of idiot amateur without all the proper equipment. I lug it down the drive, across the road, and then sprint to Big Andy’s as fast as an unfit fat bloke carrying a rigid square bag of heavy bowls implements can sprint. He is jangling car keys impatiently; Mrs Big Andy stands hands-on-hips in their doorway, shaking her head and making ‘have a good evening, if this is really the way you want to spend your Friday night’ noises. I leap into the passenger seat and we are away in a haze of dust and sporting expectation.
In my pocket: house keys, some small change, a mobile phone. A mobile phone! Why do I bother with a mobile phone these days? I do not have important people to call any more; there is no reason why anybody would need to get hold of me. I get the odd text message from Short Tony that simply reads ‘pub?’, but seeing that he lives in the cottage next door you cannot really count the mobile connection as a vital communications lifeline. My mum and dad have a mobile phone but do not know how to use it; the LTLP knows where I’ll be all day. My friend Unlucky John, the only other person in the world whom I speak to, tends to prefer mobile to landline. But he’s in London, where such status is important.
It is a comfort thing, however. I will have it to hand should there be an emergency at bowls. The LTLP’s employers have given her a BlackBerry, which means that half the emails that pop up in my inbox with a cheerful ‘bing!’, causing such excitement and anticipation, turn out to be mundane and uninteresting things like ‘get the dinner on and don’t burn it this time you idiot’. So I took her old phone when my one finally gave up the ghost. It is a bright lurid pink Motorola, small and dainty, and adorned with girlish graphics.
But who cares? Once, this pink phone would have been a shameful accessory for me, as I wandered amidst the Neanderthal plains of people in chequered suits and wanky black-rimmed spectacles, of braying rah rah me me me idiots, of money-and-status-obsessed bottled-beer-drinking, testosteroned pre-Dibley clowns. That’s one of the big advantages of living in a tiny village in Norfolk. Nobody is particularly bothered about the superficial. Just one more stupid unnecessary mental weight that disappears when you leave the world of commuter trains and Strategic HR Initiatives.
It’s an easy-going game; none of the other bowlers really mind if you leave your phone on through the evening. Aside from that one time when it escalated a bit, and people ended up shouting ‘Well fuck you then! Fuck you!’ at each other, across the green. That was an exception.
Personally, I have a system. I keep my mobile phone switched on just in case there is an emergency or somebody important does call – but I make sure that I leave it in the pocket of my anorak which hangs in the clubhouse. That way nobody will hear it ringing and be disturbed during a crucial end. It seems a reasonable compromise.
Yes, my name is Alex Marsh and I play bowls.
I am thirty-thing years old, and I play bowls. Bowls is what I play. I am not ashamed of it; I do not seek to apologise or be defensive. I play bowls. It is not as if I am Mrs Karen Matthews, or have been exposed having sex with livestock on YouTube, or wrote and produced ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’. I play my bowls with pride. I would shout it from the rooftops, but I am afraid of heights.
My name is Alex Marsh and I play bowls. And so does Eddie, and Nigel, and Big Andy, and even John Twonil’s been persuaded to give it a try. We are the exciting new faces of the sport. It sits oddly with the guitar hero status, I know. But there have been stranger combinations. Rock and roll, bowls; bowls, rock and roll. There’s nothing mutually exclusive – it does not need to be an either/or. One does not preclude the other. It is perfectly possible to both jack, and to Fleetwood Mac.
Barry Hearn knows.
Barry Hearn is the legendary sporting Svengali who does the snooker, and boxing, and darts. The man who made Steve Davis. The Don King of Romford. The Billy Graham of the baize. What Barry Hearn doesn’t know about marketing sport isn’t worth knowing. And he thinks bowls is going to be the next thing – which is why he has put it on Sky TV, during peak morning viewing. So scoff at the beautiful sport at your peril.
I suppose I have mixed feelings about this. It is like when you discover a new band – you want them to be your own special band all to yourself. You do not want them to become popular and mainstream and put on by consensus as background music at dinner parties. And whilst wishing your special band all the goodwill in the world, you would rather that they starved in the gutter than enjoyed any form of commercial success, as this would spoil it for you.
Something a bit like that happened to my own band. However, more of that later.
Will bowls as we know it survive the Sky TV experience? Will it retain its unique nature, or will it sell out to the forces of Evil Marketing? Will the money grow and nurture it, or will it corrupt it? Will it retain the nobility of sport, or will it descend into a new WWF pantomime?
The television camera itself is a great distortion pedal, a two-dimensional screen that loses the subtleties and many of the unsubtleties also. When you watch cricket, it’s impossible to judge how fast the bowler’s letting the ball go – you have to work it out from where the wicket keeper’s standing. Football is robbed of the intense physical aspect, horse racing is sterile without the flying hooves and mud; long pots on the snooker table appear easy and unmissable. I would not want the casual Sky TV viewer to see what I do every week and to dismiss it casually as some gentle meandering pastime. That would be crushing. But I think Barry Hearn and I are on the same wavelength.
Barry Hearn knows that it’s the new rock and roll.
‘Here you go.’
Nigel strides like a parade sergeant before the row of benches, where we are sitting changing into our deeply, deeply unfashionable shoes. He stops at each player and hands out new kit from a plastic bag – a brand-new, pristine, never-been-used, soft and lovely Stella Artois beer towel.
‘Thanks!’ I say in surprise.
‘I got them from work,’ he explains, moving on to Glen. ‘Given to me.’
Along the line, people take their towels and beam in gratitude, holding them up to look closer. Matching beer towels! The whole thing looks bloody professional, in tune with the new image of bowls, a co-ordinated wave of red that will raise pride and morale in the team, aside from providing more efficient wiping.
That’s us. The village bowls team. Sponsored by Wifebeater Lager.
It’s just a roll-up tonight. No opposition – merely a friendly opportunity to get together and to have a bit of practice before the league starts in earnest. But there is still a buzz of excitement in the air. The dawn of a new season – the first date on my headlining UK tour. The bowling green is my raised stage; the woods are my guitar, and the mat represents my effects pedals. I have not actually ever been on a headlining UK tour, but the parallel is there. The scoreboard is my set list; the beer towel is my guitar lead. Nigel, skipper of our block, is my bass player; Big Andy is my drummer. We don’t have a screaming hysterical audience of teenage girls – our most loyal and regular supporter has been unable to turn out to spectate since he got his foot amputated – although Eileen is here, and she sometimes likes to sit and watch, chucking in the odd heckle, in lieu of playing. But the parallel is definitely there.
I am pleased with my analogy. Songwriting is all about analogies – good songwriting is all about unexpected, hidden ones. ‘There She Goes’ by the La’s is about heroin, not a lady who is going. Really, playing bowls is just like being in a successful rock band. I can’t really see many differences.
Big