A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
The Melbourne Village Hall Bowls Club was founded in 1967 by a small contingent of villagers.
(Les and Norman Steels; Peter Fridlington; Derek and Bill Walker; Cyril Blenkin and Mr Knowles).
The area where the bowling green is currently sited was originally part of the grounds of the adjacent property and was given over mid war to Melbourne School to use for gardening. For this purpose a tin hut with bricked side walls was constructed to house the garden tools in the area immediately behind where the current bowls pavillion can be found. The "garden tool shed" was used by the Home Guard for storing, it is said, their ammunition, during WW2.
Permission was obtained to use what is now the car park at the village hall for bowling. At that time the whole area was covered in briers and bushes that needed clearing. Sand was initially used in an attempt to provide a flatish and level playing surface of arbitrary dimension and no gutters . Woods, four sets to start, were purchased from Bulmers, the second hand shop on Lord Mayors Walk in York and a book on "How to Bowl" was found and read from cover to cover. Slippers were re-purposed as flat soled bowling shoes and after a month of practice all were ready for serious competition.
The first 'match' was played at home against the best established team in the area, Dunnington, the 'bowling green was carefully prepared and made ready. Dunnington duly arrived at Melbourne for the match and asked, "where is the green", to be informed that they, "were standing on it". Home advantage, in the form of a bumpy and lumpy playing surface that counteracted any benefit of bias in the wood came to the fore and Melbourne were victorious. The return game at Dunnington was a somewhat different story and it was agreed that what Melbourne needed was, "a proper bowling green".
Melbourne School had not included gardening in their curriculum for some time and the garden plot had become overgrown. The school agreed to the Village Hall taking over the plot and this was then converted by the players with the help of local tradesmen and farmers and funding from holding domino drives, whist drives and coffee mornings. All of the work done provided the basis of the bowling green we see today.