The object of bowls is fairly simple.

Get your bowls closest to a smaller white ball called a jack that is at the other end of a piece of ground.

Of course it's not that easy as the bowls do not travel in a straight line, so you have to judge how far they will curve when letting them go.

Players take it in turns to bowl TWO bowls each at the jack.

Each series of bowls is called an end.

Once all bowls are bowled the player with the bowl closest to the jack scores a point.

If they have more than one bowl nearer to the jack than their opponent they score more than one point.

Once an end is completed the winning player rolls to the jack to other end of the green and they start again.

In the Kidderminster League, the first player to 15 wins.

Before the Winter Olympics, some people described curling as bowls on ice.

Since those Games, and as a result of the rising popularity of curling, it could now be the other way round - bowls is like curling, just on grass.

Unfortunately bowls does have an image as a sport that only old people can play, but that is far from the case, it's a sport for all ages.

WHY DON'T THE BOWLS ROLL STRAIGHT.

The short answer is they're not supposed to.

Although the bowls themselves look round they're not. They actually have a chunk shaved off the side so that they don't roll in a straight line.

As they roll they tilt towards the non-round side, called the bias.

The faster a bowl is rolled the less it turns, but the harder it is to stop close to the jack.

Instead bowls players have to learn how far off-target to start their shot so that the bias brings the bowl back to where they want it to stop.

Alternatively, if they want to break up an end because it's going against them, they could choose to hurl the bowl down the green as quick as they can at the bowls in play.

They hope the high-speed delivery means the bias doesn't have an effect, making the bowl go in a straight line

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KIDDERMINSTER & DISTRICT MIDWEEK BOWLING LEAGUE