9:17am Tuesday 28th October 2008
By Sally Clifford
Participating in a sport without sight takes tremendous skill.
John and Christine Newcombe are among thousands of visually-impaired bowlers, and have competed in Israel and South Africa, and next year are off to Australia – places they would never have been able to explore had it not been for their mutual love of bowling.
While bowling is deemed a minority sport and doesn’t have the enormous cash injection or the prestige of being part of the Olympics or Paralympics, for players like Christine and John it is giving them the opportunity of playing a sport at a competitive level and at a very high standard, despite their disability.
Their first hurdle wasn’t their disability – it was finding a flat green closest to their-then home in Todmorden. “We used to bowl indoors but we had to come over to Cleckheaton because that was the nearest one,” says John, referring to their two-hour trek from Todmorden to Whitcliffe Mount Sports centre in Cleckheaton, where they still practice during the winter.
Back in the Fifties when blind bowling began in Scotland players relied on clapping to know where their woods landed. Today they use the clock face method. Players imagine the jack as the centre of the clock. They decifer the positions of the bowls by imagining the numbers around a clock face.
The reason why flat green is preferred to crown green is it is played in lanes. Players like Christine with no sight or those with slight sight rely on a thin white string indicating the centre of the lane. In 1996 and after years of tin-rattling, event-organising and other fundraising initiatives, Princess Anne bowled a wood along the brand new flat green outside the purpose-built club in Wellholme Park, Brighouse, officially opening the new home to Pennine Bowling Club For The Visually Handicapped.
The dedication and commitment to creating a facility for blind bowlers finally paid off. Six years later John found himself in the presence of Royalty once again when he was honoured with an MBE for his services to the sport. He was bestowed with his honour by Prince Charles at the ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
If only his sport received similar recognition, funding may not be such a struggle, yet in countries such as South Africa and Israel they discovered they receive Government support for their sport.
The problem, John explains, is bowling is perceived as a minority sport. So there’s no chance of seeing blind bowlers at the Paralympics? “Because it is a minority sport it isn’t in the Olympics or the Paralympics,” says John.
“They say not enough countries play it, but when we go to the world championships there are 12 countries there.”
The lack of funding and support has resulted in many talented bowlers spending the time they should be practising and playing, raising money. They’ve had some funding through Awards For All to fund specific events and support from the national charity, the Primary Club, but their aim is to give others the benefit of taking part in a sport some with no sight may think is beyond them.
John is the current Pairs English Champion with John Rix, from Lowestoft; he won the UK Triples Championship twice in 2005 and 2003, and was part of the Pennine English Nationals Triple team.
Christine lost her sight at ten following an operation to rectify a dislocated lens. John had cataracts from birth and developed glaucoma. He has slight sight but is registered blind.
Living without one of the senses we take for granted is second nature to them. They admit it is difficult at times.
“The older you are the harder it is to adapt,” they say. “When people lose their sight or some sight it hits them like a ton of bricks. We have had to cope. It’s a case of getting on with life.”
Christine went to blind school at 11. “I was used to it because everybody at school was visually impaired.”
“But I didn’t learn braille until I was about 16,” says John. “I learned a lot from TV and radio.”
Advances in technology – they have a voice synthesiser attached to their computer to aid communication – have broadened the world beyond their front room.
They came to Birkenshaw more than a decade ago from Todmorden where they began bowling in the late Eighties. “John used to play visually impaired cricket so I thought, why don’t we start doing something together like bowling? He has cursed me for it ever since!” says Christine.
“I thought it would be nice to do something and get out and about, and it’s certainly taken us out and about.”
Travel is one of the many benefits bowling brings to its visually-impaired players. Some enjoy the social side but for the majority it is the opportunity to participate in a sport to a high standard.
“It’s the full range,” says John. “One person said to me, ‘I used to feel isolated and almost felt like banging my head against a wall with boredom.’ “It gets you out and about and it’s good exercise,” says Christine, treasurer of the Pennine club.
And, according to John, it enables visually-impaired people to participate in a sport. “Visually impaired people can participate in bowling and enjoy a better quality of life. That is what it means to me.
“It’s great winning trophies but at the end of the day if people are really enjoying their life rather than not, that is good, and what I would like to see is more people taking advantage of what we have got, because I think if people actually try it and find out about it they would really enjoy it.”
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