Club History

The following is a short history of the Club, written some years ago by  one of our members,
Roy Barden.

"The Stocksbridge Friendship Bowling Club is a small private bowling club affiliated to the
Sheffield & District Parks Bowling Association. It is also affiliated to the Sheffield &
Hallamshire Bowling Association, The Sheffield & District Social Clubs Bowling Association
and the Dearne & Don Valley Bowling Association.

The bowling green is situated in the centre of Stocksbridge at the rear of the Friendship
public house. The green is leased from Enterprise Inns Brewery who also own the pub.
Maintenance of the green being done by the club members with no financial outside help. It is thought that the green has been in existence for close to ninety years but this cannot be
confirmed. The date above the entrance to Friendship is 1903 and it is thought the green
would have been laid a few years later.

An item in the Green Un sports paper dated 18th January 1919 refers to a meeting of the newly formed Friendship Hotel Bowling Club, Stocksbridge as being a fusion of two clubs, the late Viola Bank and the Arundel Bowling Clubs. At this meeting it was decided to enter the League, The Ledingham Bowl and the Telegraph Cup. It is not clear but it appears matches were to be played at the Viola Bank. This meeting seems to have been brought about by the hard work of Mr T. Batty host of the Friendship Hotel (a very good bowler and sportsman known throughout Yorkshire). By 1921 league matches were being played at the Friendship with club trophies dating back to 1935. The green was re laid in the 1940s the cost being paid for by the brewery.

The club resumed competitive bowling in the late 1940s when they joined the Sheffield Hallamshire Bowling Association but had to wait until 1968 to win their first trophy, this being the Saturday "B" Division.

In 1952 the groundsman at that time, Mr Frank Firth, was a class winner in the Yorkshire
Green Keepers Trophy, founded by the Yorkshire Evening Post in 1924 to find the best kept
bowling greens in the county. The categories being Private greens, Parks greens, Works and
welfare greens and flat greens. The prize money for winning the Private green award was £10 at a time when the subscriptions were ten shillings (50p) and the club had forty one members.

In 1981 the club joined the Dearne & Don Valley Bowling Association winning the "B" Division at the first attempt. In 1991 the club joined the Sheffield Parks ad in 1995 joined the
Sheffield & District Social Clubs. The longest serving members are Roy Barden who has been a member since 1956 and Ron Jubb who joined in 1963."