Summer Sports - Bowls Popes Mead
Life in the wet lane!
Norman Kennard in front of ‘the finest bowls surface in Sussex
Popes Mead Bowls Club goes back to 1918. Its original site is now a TGI Fridays in Crawley, whilst Its home these days is very prone to flooding. Yet, it is the finest bowls surface in Sussex and hosts the county’s championships. Neville Johnson went there to meet Norman Kennard, the man at the helm, in every sense!
age group was the over eighties! His real forte, though, is in the world of bowls. He’s in his second year as elected President of the Popes Mead club, but in his umpteenth as its greenkeeper. The day I’m there, he’s dressed for his duties as the former because the club is hosting a ladies inter-county league match between Sussex and Berkshire. The move from the town centre to its
N
Willoughby Fields site just south of Crawley in 1997 came about after lengthy negotiations with the Town Council and a developer. A deal then said to be worth £1 million - effectively a freehold swap -
64 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014
orman Kennard is a pretty decent golfer; played off eight in his younger days and came second in a national competition for his age group recently - that
included the building of a handsome new clubhouse and two new greens, one traditional grass, the other an all-weather ProMaster, on out-of-town, previously council owned utility land. Interest from the deal’s cash surplus has since been used to help maintain the club’s facilities. “Managing two grass greens would be
arduous and very costly, so we decided our second would be an all-weather green,” said Norman, who was very much involved in these negotiations. Popes Mead members - and there are about 120 of them - still prefer to bowl on grass rather than the all-weather green, but they saw it as an investment for the future, and it does guarantee them year-round outdoor bowling in all but exceptional circumstances, which Norman would soon
Immaculate greens, delightful surroundings - What flood?
recall. The two greens are regulation size 40 yards square and approved and registered for national standards. Looking across the immaculate setting as
the ladies representing Sussex and Berkshire prepare for their league encounter, it is hard to imagine how anything could ever be otherwise.
Norman quietly admits he prefers the job
of greenkeeper to his Presidential duties as he dons his jacket and chain of office, before walking to the centre of the green, mike in hand, to say a few words of welcome and hand the green to those representing the Sussex and Berkshire teams. The six-rink match gets under way and forty-eight ladies do battle for twenty-one ends. That job done, he’s back in greenkeeping mode and refers to the River Mole, out of sight on this lovely summer’s day, yet a constant near neighbour. Most of the time the Mole is a friendly, trickling tributary of the Thames, flowing north some fifty miles to Hampton Court. Willoughby Fields is not too far from the where the Mole rises at Rusper, near Horsham though and, if there’s ever what the Met Office refer to these days as ‘a rain event’, the trickle quickly turns into
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