Where have all the women gone?

Club News

Bill Blackburn looks back to 1979 and the introduction of an annual bowling competition at Linthwaite Hall. He recalls the rise and fall of the competition over the following 45 years which has now reached a make-or-break period for the Enid Blackburn Competition.

The 2025 competition is still short of 8 bowlers.

Entry Fee £10 to Shirley Dillingham  01484 846331

£650 in prize money, winner £240 if 32 entries

It all starts at 10.00am this Sunday still at Linthwaite Hall.

Bill takes up the story .....

I have an Examiner news cutting from 1979, in which Peter Muff asks ‘Where have all the women gone?’ He was referring to a question I asked as president of Linthwaite Hall when I started a competition for lady bowlers which had hard cash for prizes as opposed to the usual thermos flasks and cut-glass vases.

We had a sponsor, David Ingham owner of a supermarket and owner of top racehorse Wayward Lad, a regular National Hunt winner. The entry fee was £1.50. We eventually got the 32 bowlers required and the first winner was Huddersfield Ladies chairman, Olive Parr.

Over the next few years the competition flourished and entries reached 64 and bowlers came from all across Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire and as far south as Birmingham and plans were in progress for a 128 competition, bowled over four Sundays with a final day 16.

In 1981 a 16-year-old girl from Warrington, Karen Galvin triumphed and she won again on three separate occasions. The competition eventually died out in early 1990.

Following the death of my wife, Enid in 2004 my family decided to resurrect a similar competition, but with 32 entrants. The competition is being run at Linthwaite Hall, but the problem is the same as in 1979, ‘where have all the women gone?’   Out of over 700 registered lady bowlers in the evening league we can only muster 24, in which is now a 32 to compete for the top prize of £240. This may be the last running of the event if the required number is not achieved.