The Huddersfield Merit 40 years ago

Memories

The recent postings about the Huddersfield Merit prompted Bill Blackburn to recall how the competition was run over 40 years ago.

In 1982 when I was competition secretary for the Huddersfield & District Bowling Association, once all entries for the Yorkshire Merit were received, we had to submit the total to the YCCGBA who then informed us of how many places we were allocated for the final.

In Huddersfield the qualifying rounds took place on a Saturday on selected greens. The winners had to ring Paddock I&C (no mobile phones then) as soon as they had qualified and the committee who would sit there waiting for phone calls would then make a draw of the winners to play on two greens, the winners to go forward to the final.

After the draw had been made the qualifiers would contact Paddock to see which green

they had been drawn on.

We probably had in excess of 60 entries at that time and Huddersfield may have been allocated as many as six places. The mobile phone, facebook and bowlsnet has made things much simpler.