Features / Food Shop
An evening of lawn bowls with Food Shop
Culinary-inclined sportsmen and women gathered at St Andrews Bowls Club on a recent summer’s day to partake in an evening of food, wine and bowls.
The event was hosted by Gloucester Road deli, Food Shop. Owner Darren Tooley recently moved his shop into a bigger premises, a stone’s throw away from the previous site.
St Andrews Bowls Club is the classically well-groomed, prim and proper site you’d come to expect from bowls.
is needed now More than ever
Every line is perfectly straight, and narrow, with every bowl a satisfying shade of crimson brown or flawless black.
On the side of the club, a mural depicts a slick female bowls player mid-throw, challenging the common assumptions of bowls as a sport solely for older men.
St Andrews Bowling club was originally founded in 1924 – photo: Hope Talbot
After some socialising in the evening sunshine, as well as a few glasses of chilled wine and nibbles brought fresh from Food Shop, it was time for bowls.
A gathering of Gloucester Road locals joined Sue Whale, artist and bowls aficionado, for a lesson in how to bowl.
To play bowls, you’re aiming to get as close as possible to the Jack, a small white ball which sits at the back of the lawn.
Each bowl has ‘a bias’, meaning it has an uneven weight distribution. Based on this, it’s necessary to roll a bowl at an angle, so that it follows a straight path towards the Jack. However, be warned.
If you roll the bowl too far, you will face the consequences of the ditch, a small moat surrounding the lawn where overly ambitious balls meet their peril.
As we lined up, and began our practice rounds, I was feeling overconfident.
I’d eaten some of Food Shop’s huge juicy olives and bantered with some genuinely delightful people. I was feeling rather jovial. Why wouldn’t I be excellent at bowls? Unfortunately, however, this was not to be.
As I watched my teammates throw beautifully smooth, slow bowls, I came in with the completely wrong approach. First, my bowl was too timid, pathetically rolling across the lawn at a snail’s pace.
Then, I was too keen, throwing absurdly high, and landing myself in the ditch of doom.
My team playfully teased me, and at points did equally as badly, which was a great comfort.
Overall, in spite of losing out on the grand prize, a huge jar of Spanish olives, I felt hugely welcomed by the team at Food Shop, and sorely hoped I’d get another opportunity at vying for another grand prize delicacy.
Main photo: Hope Talbot
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