Winter League 2025-26 starts on Monday

Winter League

The 2025-26 Winter League season starts next Monday with the Division 4 fixture programme at Primrose Hill Lib kicking off the 14-week playing season. This will be the 6th Winter League season during which time we have grown from no teams at all to 72 teams of 4 persons in a team. That means we have 288 bowlers playing outdoors every week from next Monday until the end of February. If you then add the 8 new teams joining the Mini-League that takes the total to 80 teams and 320 bowlers in action every week up to Christmas. Add to those numbers the 20-40 spectators we attract to every matchday which all adds up to the unique social event that the competition has become.

That, in no small measure, is mainly down to the way that the host greens have taken to the task of looking after bowlers and spectators and providing an increasing range of hot and cold food and hot drinks for all. They are rewarded with increasing numbers coming through the gates to taste their wares and sample the experience of winter bowling.

Later this month we will be announcing an Open Day which we hope will attract some clubs to learn all about what is involved, the responsibilities and benefits of becoming a host green in the future. We believe that we will need two more new host greens for the 2026-27 season starting in October 2026 to meet the ever-increasing demand for places in the League. This Open Day will introduce winter bowling to those in attendance and provide a Q&A opportunity to learn what it is that continues to attract more and more bowlers to an extended bowling season. Depending on the response to this we may or may not run a 2nd Open Day after Christmas. We hope to recruit two new host greens from these events and secure the continuing growth and popularity of bowling in the Winter League.

Also this season we are running a Try-Before-You-Buy opportunity for 8 new teams in a new Division 10 which will run for 7-weeks from 27 October at Lindley Lib. Seven of those 8 places have now been taken and we hope to complete the line-up over the next few days. Entries are being accepted on a first-come first-served basis so anyone interested needs to act now. Full details are here about how it will all work and how your team can join in this early taster session.

Primrose Hill Liberal Club is the venue for the first round of full League fixtures next Monday quickly followed by Lockwood Con and Paddock I&C on the Tuesday (14th). The Paddock green will host the Division 9 teams and is a new addition to the Winter League scene. We have put 7 new teams into this division along with Kirkheaton C&BC B team who were relegated from Division 8 at the end of last season. Then there are Division 3 matches being played at Springwood on Wednesday (15th) and then on Thursday (16th) the Division 7 fixture programme at Huddersfield Rugby Club also gets underway. All the fixtures are listed on our Winter League Bowlsnet pages.

Keep visiting the Winter League website here at www.huddweb.co.uk to keep up to date with all the League news as the season progresses and don't forget the Open Day which we will be announcing here very soon.