How we teach someone who has never bowled their first four ends

Before anyone touches a bowl

The first thing is shoes. Bowls is played in flat-soled shoes with no heel and next to no tread, because heels and treads cut into the grass. We keep a few pairs of old plimsolls in the pavilion in assorted sizes, and if nothing fits the newcomer plays the first session in socks, which on a summer lawn is less uncomfortable than it sounds. After shoes come a few words on where to stand: behind the mat of whoever is bowling, never on the rink in front of them, and quiet while they deliver. None of it is formal. It is the same courtesy you would show someone lining up a putt or a photograph.

We skip the whites. The club greens elsewhere in the borough have their dress rules and are welcome to them, but our group plays in whatever people arrive in, and the council has never once objected. The only exceptions are shoes, which protect the green, and a hat in July, which protects the bowler.

The first delivery

I put a mat down about two metres from the ditch and roll the jack to a short length, about twenty-three metres, which is the minimum and about as far as someone can manage without straining. Then I hand over a bowl of the right size, point out the small ring, and ask them to face it towards the inside of the rink for a forehand. Before they bowl I have them stand on the mat, look at the jack and then look at a point well out to one side, which is where they are going to aim. This is where the game stops making sense to most people. You aim away from what you want to hit, and the bias brings the bowl back.

The first bowl nearly always goes too far or not far enough, and quite often off the side of the rink altogether. That is fine. The second is better, and by the fourth most people have seen at least one bowl curl in towards the jack in a way that makes them laugh out loud. That laugh is when I know they will be back.

Playing the first ends

An end is the unit of the game: everyone bowls their bowls towards the jack, and then the bowls closest to it score. After a few practice bowls we play a short game of four ends with the newcomer, in pairs, each of us bowling two. I explain the scoring as we go. Whichever side has the nearest bowl scores a shot for every one of its bowls that is closer than the other side's best. Measuring a close shot by eye, and then with the tape when the eye cannot decide, is usually the part people enjoy most, because it involves crouching over the jack and arguing.

We do not keep proper score in these games, or rather we keep it and then forget it. The point of four ends is that the newcomer bowls from both ends of the rink, walks up with the others, looks at the head, and has someone show them what a well-placed bowl looks like compared with one that merely got close. After that they usually want to try the backhand, which is harder, and we let them.

Somewhere in the second or third end most newcomers discover the difference between drawing to the jack and simply hitting things. A bowl sent hard and straight will knock the jack about, and there is a real pleasure in that, which we do not discourage. The shots people remember from their first afternoon, though, are nearly always the slow ones: a bowl that runs out wide, hangs for a moment on the edge of the rink, then turns and settles against the jack. We make a point of saying so when it happens, loudly, from the far end.

What we have found helps people stay

Over four seasons perhaps twenty people have come for a first session, and eight or nine of them are still coming. The ones who stayed were nearly always paired in their first few weeks with the same regular player rather than passed round the group. Having one person who knows how your bowling is changing helps more than any amount of well-meant advice from several people, which tends to contradict itself. We now do this on purpose.

The other thing is not to talk too much. Someone standing on the mat for the first time does not need a lecture on bias, grip, stance and delivery; they need one thing to think about, and when that is working, the next one. I say much less than I used to, and I suspect people learn faster for it. The green teaches them most of the rest.