Meersbrook Park has been selected to host a Cup Match between Laycocks and Crookes Social on Thursday 8th June. This means that the top green will not be available for the regular Thursday Social. The Social Bowling night is therefore being switched to Wednesday 7th June for this week.
The Sheffield and Hallamshire Bowls Association, like most other leagues in South Yorkshire, insist on neutral venues for cup competitions as home advantage is considered too significant to be fair to the away side. Certainly, having played on half a dozen greens around the city, your faithful reporter can confirm that they are all very different. In his humble opinion, Crown Green Bowling provides the greatest degree of home advantage in any sport.
As an aside, in competitions, where a player is competing on their own club’s green, they play with a penalty – for example a three point deficit – to offset their “home knowledge”.
Members are still very welcome to come and spectate at the Laycocks / Crookes Cup Tie and could help out selling refreshments should they have any inclination to.