South Park Bowls Club

Darlington Park BC was formed in 1896 after Mr J. Deas called a public meeting at the Mechanics Hall. This was a decision made after a public demand for a sports facility in Darlington. Darlington Council provided a bowls green in Darlington Park, which was built in 1894.

The club applied to join the South Cleveland and Durham League in which they were accepted and played during the 1896 season. The clubs first ever bowls match was played at Grove Hill against Middlesbrough Bowls Club.

Darlington Parks first club success came in the 20th Century, the year 1900 when the Cleveland and South Durham League was won. The club continued to bowl in this league until 1908 when the team was controversially banned for refusing to play the League Final at Stockton BC. It was felt ridiculous to make people travel when the final was between two Darlington clubs, the other being Darlington Central Bowls Club.

Darlington Park wasn’t without bowls, the Darlington League, now known as Darlington and District League was formed in 1907 where we had already entered a team. The club was dominant and won many consecutive league titles for almost half a century.

The club has been very benevolent over the years; World Wars 1 & 2 disrupted bowling cancelling the league. The club continued and raised finances for Darlington Greenbank hospital and many funds relating to bereaved relatives and wounded soldiers.

1930 saw Darlington Council provide a new bowling green, which was opened by Mayoress Mrs H.P. Bell where a photo can be seen in the South Park Café today. As there were now many clubs in Darlington the club was becoming known Darlington South Park Bowling Club although this hadn’t become official until the 1970’s when the constitution was revised.

1930 Also saw the club enter the recently formed Durham County EBA League. This was and still is a highly competitive league, still ran in Yorkshire today. Darlington Park’s main success in this league was in the knockout where they triumphed in 1955 and 1959. However the club dropped out of this league not long after.

1938 was nearly a year that changed the club and took it away from its roots. The club put plans in place to become private moving to a site that was known as Greylands on Coniscliffe Road, Darlington, which is now part of a large housing estate.

As the club from 1930 was becoming well known in their EBA Affiliation individual successes started to arise. The Durham County EBA Fours was won by AJ. Alsop/J. Stirling/J.W. Dale in 1936, which sent them down to London for the National Finals. Since this has only been achieved by a few players. 1960 saw another Fours Success with R. Wealands/C. Holliday/G. Coates/A.J. Alsop. 1996 saw Durham County EBA 2 Wood Success with W. Morland and 1997 & 1999 saw S. Morland have Durham County EBA Junior success and Northern Counties success in 1997. The club has had a few near misses with W. Morland and B. Hopkins reaching the National Finals at Worthing and R. Woodward being the losing finalist in the Junior Singles. Over these years the club has had many players representing Durham County, with 2 England Trialists, 1 at Senior level in Colin Richardson and 1 at Junior level in Scott Morland. County players in the early years bowled for the County when it was known as Durham and North Yorkshire County. In these days they often played against touring teams from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. These matches were often held at Darlington South Park. The Superintendent for us in these years Mr J. Morrison Snr ensured we hosted these splendid events. He was also a member of the club when it was formed and the current Club Championship Trophy is still named after him to this day.

Honoraria at County level haven’t been short at this club. Alwyn Alsop CBE and Ralph Alsop were both part of a family accountants firm on Duke Street, Darlington. They were both lucky enough to become National EBA Presidents, which no one at this club has achieved since. In 1947 due to the influence of these men we managed to host the Durham County EBA Finals.

Darlington South Park BC has made many friends over the years and until recently have played many friendly matches travelling as far as Alnwick and visiting private clubs such as Ashbrooke BC in Sunderland and Northern Electric in Wallsend not to mention a yearly fixture with Consett Park many years ago.

Sadly over the 1970’s the club hit decline and membership decreased from 100 to just 50 in a short space of time. The only light note was Bob Wealands was still winning individual contests in the Champion of Champions only won by 3 players at this club. The 1980’s stabilised the club and saw a small growth and competitive streak with some new fresh county players. This kept the club going and helped Darlington South Park to have a very successful Centenary Celebration in 1996. We hosted the National EBA and County EBA Presidents Teams, every member was used and many worked incredibly hard to make this year a success. Sponsors were achieved all around and help from other friendly clubs such as Cummins BC made this celebration possible.

1996 Saw Darlington South Park enter the Indoor League at The Morrison Centre on North Road, Darlington. The club managed to win this league on a couple of occasions and are still playing in this league today. A competition ran as a knockout to this league called the Locomotive Trophy was also entered, we were unfortunately not strong enough to win this competition.

1997 started badly in the clubs AGM, war broke out between the regular A Team bowlers and the B Team. This divide brought a regular decline in membership and club atmosphere for the next 8 years until in 2004 it all finally came to a head. A crisis meeting was called as the club was left with 11 members. The club had to decide whether to fold and cease as a club or to find new ways to encourage and develop new bowlers. Unanimously it was agreed to stick it out for another year and see what we could achieve. Andy Bell, now a member of Darlington South Park BC formed a website to attract attention which is still running today and has been a success for bowls in Darlington.

In 2005 the English Bowling Association was running a Recruitment Week all around the Country to attempt to gain new bowlers by providing marketing to clubs for their perusal. Scott Morland decided to try and make this work. A Fun Day was held and many new members were achieved. Darlington Council had also given our clubhouse a makeover. We had some new young members and there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel when we managed to achieve an award for our efforts in the EBA Club of the Year being nominated as one of top 5 EBA recommended clubs to use in the Country. To ensure we took a step forward in bringing on young bowlers the club formed a child protection policy and hired a child protection officer.

2006 was then looked forward to. The club had agreed to apply to become a registered charity and there was the opportunity to expand the club. Barry Hopkins formed two sets of players for the club to enter the Darlington Works League named as Mech-Tool South Park BC. This is now a major part of the club, which is designed to bring on the younger players and new starters as the league, is much weaker and will enable new bowlers to relax easier. Darlington South Park Bowls Club was now enabled to allow female bowlers for the first time in its history. We now have 4 new female members; one in Sandra Hopkins is our first female committee member. Sandra’s husband Barry Hopkins is also now becoming a certified coach.

Now with 7 members under 16 and a base to carry the club forward Darlington South Park Bowling Club can only look forward to the future.

Watch this space.