When the grass season finishes in September we’re lucky to be able to continue to play outdoors on the synthetic green. We also have a handful of indoor friendly fixtures at Chigwell, Tye Green and Ilford Indoor Bowls Club as well as participating in Ilford’s “Outdoor In” bowling competition which has been set up to encourage outdoor (grass) players to try out indoor bowling. Matches are once per week all the way from late September through to early April.
This year we had a bigger squad than ever, all keen to participate in the indoor competition, and I think the sixteen different players who played for WBAP must be the most out of any of the clubs that competed. The willingness of so many players to represent their club was encouraging, and the results were too as we came away as league winners.
The Outdoor In format works in other ways too, as we now have four members of WBAP who have also joined Ilford in the previous two years. This has also been quite successul, with Karl Bunyan winning Ilford’s Consolation Singles competition in 2022 (which can only be entered by players who haven’t won a pairs or singles competition indoors before), and this year winning the Pairs title with Paul Whellams (who plays at Wanstead Central).
Finally, Karl also won his county badge by winning the Unbadged Singles final played at Falcon Bowling Club