THE excellent weather, friendly atmosphere and great friends made is what keeps drawing Ballarat’s Brian Croft back to Swan Hill every May.
For 15 years, Brian and his wife Sharon have made the three and a half hour trek north to compete in the Swan Hill Bowls Clubs May/Autumn Carnival, with the 59th edition set to draw to a close on Saturday.
It has become an annual pilgrimage for many bowlers across Victoria, with the eight day tournament taking on a different format each day.
But for the Crofts, the week long event isn’t just about playing the sport they’ve grown to love, but continuing the friendships they’ve developed thanks solely to the Swan Hill Bowls Club event.
“We’ve been coming up here to Swan Hill for the past 15 years, we had another couple who originally started coming up and they stopped coming two years ago, but they had been coming up here for 24 years before then,” Brian told The Guardian this week.
“The weather and the people up here is the attraction.
“The bowling’s fun, but it’s just really good to have a week away from work and to see and socialise with the same people that you see every year.
“As soon as you walk into the clubhouse, people from all the other clubs are like “oh, you’re back Crofty” and it’s like you’re best mates again for the whole week.
“It’s not just the locals either, it’s the same people from other clubs who like us keep coming back every year. For example, there’s one guy from Mitcham who’s been here for the past 23 or 24 years.
“Tomorrow (Wednesday) we don’t play at all, for us we have our social day, we all have a big barbecue over at the caravan park and we sit there and have lunch and then have a few drinks for the rest of the afternoon.
“Normally our group has around 30 to 40 people, but this year we only have 20-odd just because of other commitments, but those of us who have made the trip love it and we’ll certainly keep coming back.”
While the May/Autumn Carnival is as much about the social element of bowls as it is the competitive, the perception around the sport is beginning to change shape, with a younger audience beginning to take up the highly competitive pastime in recent years.
Having been married for 39 years, both Brian and Sharon agree that bowls is sport for the whole family, with their son first taking up the sport when he was eight years old.
“I always thought it was an older person’s sport, but when our son started playing it changed my perspective,” Sharon said.
“It’s not just a sport for older people at all, it’s actually a social sport and events like this prove that.
“‘Smirny’ (Greg Plier) is Brian’s step brother and the four of us play in the tournaments together normally.
“It’s a family game generally and our son used to come up here to Swan Hill as well, but his work commitments make it difficult for him to get up here that often now.”
The three rinks at the Swan Hill Bowls Club have been full all week with both locals and visitors to our region, with all vying to take home a victory in one of the eight prestigious events.
But while the benefits for the participants are obvious, with the social as well as physical elements of the sport one of the drawcards, the untold economic benefits to the community can’t be unrecognised either.
“We love it (Swan Hill), it’s such a beautiful town and the weather is always amazing at this time of year,” Brian said.
“Every year we come up here we go to nearly every venue; we’re going to the RSL club tonight, we normally go over to the Commercial and over to the Fed for dinner.
“We go to all the businesses and Sharon goes shopping every day. We buy all our groceries when we get here and we try to support the town as much as we can.
“Country people know how hard it can be for a small community and we want to help support your town and I think almost everyone that comes up here is the same.
“We’ve been coming here for so many years we almost feel like locals anyway, I mean Sharon didn’t play on Saturday but she stayed in the clubhouse and helped the ladies do afternoon tea.
“In the past I’ve served behind the bar because in years gone by because I have my RSA and when good people need help you just jump in help where you can.
“It’s such a welcoming town and club that you sort of become apart of the local scene once you’ve been here a while.”
