Update 8^th October  2015.

Comment on Bowls   by Denis Duffy.

Palmerston North’s Ross Ellery found the going tough in Malaysia at the international event which he has recently been competing in . Ross gained entry with his win in last season’s National Club Singles and travelled with the Women’s winner, Sandra Keith, formerly of Ashburton and now playing out of Allenton. Ross is not the first to discover the problems posed in that region by unfamiliar and very slow surfaces, intense humidity and the growing power in the game of many Asian nations. He qualified for post-section play with two hard-fought wins, only to be beaten 17-16 and eliminated by the Philippines representative. With Keith, he was also knocked out of the Mixed Pairs event in the first knockout round. The pain of Ross’s loss may be eased when he reflects that several of the wins that took him to Malaysia were also achieved by narrow margins, and that differences in player ability at international level are often very fine indeed. He will return to discover that the Palmerston North club’s selectors have again named him to play Singles in the top grade of this year’s Interclub. The rest of his team, the only one confirmed for the competition as yet, features Terry Johnson Skipping the Pair with Dean Gilshnan, and Pat Horgan Skipping a Four that includes Chris Barrett, Brian Looker and Graeme Cooley.

Both Men’s and Women’s Manawatu teams finished in the lower positions at the recent Inter-Centre Under 5 Years rep match played annually at Wanganui.  This event is played on artificial surfaces at the old Wanganui club that much more experienced players have found challenging, but of course it is often observed that the conditions are the same for all competitors.

The annual tournament  in support of the local Rescue Helicopter operation will be held at Palmerston North this Saturday, October 10th, and further entries are needed. This is an ‘Any Gender’ Triples tournament, played in mufti, and the cause is obviously a very worthy one.

Thanks Denis.

Notes from the Club Captain

Fellow Bowlers

Thanks to those of you who played in the Monaco Shield Challenge against Palmerston North on Sunday. A most enjoyable afternoon with the results not quite going our way this time. The return match is to be played in March. Congratulations to Graham Black who has been selected to play in the Men’s 8 year and under Tri Series on October 18..

Centre Mixed 2x4x2 Open Pairs

Entries for this Labour Weekend Tournament close at 5:00pm today. If you are putting in your entry at the club please make any cheques out to Northern Bowling Club and Secretary Christine will send in one payment for all entries.

Wednesday Aggregate

Remember to have your names in by 12:30pm please for these Wednesday fixtures.

Men’s Trousers and Shorts.

A minimum of 10 orders required before we can send in the order. Try on the samples in the clubrooms to determine your size.

Club Shirts

There is also a sign up for the new club shirts if you wish to order.

Up Coming Tournaments/Interclub

Please check out the notice board for a number of tournaments coming up as well as availability for Inter Club. Unfortunately last Saturday’s tournament had to be cancelled due to lack of entries. Please support the club and enter when you can.

Skog Triples and Elizabeth Walker Tuesday tournaments begin next week.

G and G McKenzie Mixed Pairs is on Sunday week, October 18.

The LJ Hooker sponsored Any Gender Open Triples is being held at Northern on Thursday October 29.

Good Bowling to you all

Doug Hayward

Club Captain

Update 23^rd  September  2015.

Comment on Bowls   by Denis Duffy.

Two recently confirmed moves by top players will  make a significant impact on relative club strength in the new season. The big one is the move by Philip Skoglund to the  strong and famously cashed-up Eastbourne club, competing in the Wellington Centre’s Interclub. Eastbourne has previously imported national legend Gary Lawson and former NZ Singles champion Justin Goodwin in their quest for the kudos of being the top club in the country. Former top Manawatu player Ray Lovie also plays there, and Philip’s arrival will further add to their strength. The Wellington Interclub season is much longer than the Manawatu one, and this extended competition at a good level will appeal to Philip. Locals will surely wish him well in the light of his long and dedicated service to Manawatu. Philip’s illustrious father, the late Phil Skoglund, also trod the Wellington greens for a couple of seasons when in his prime in the early 1960’s . This was when he had just the first of his National Singles titles in his CV, and before he became established as an all-time great in the game. Just how the move will affect Philip’s representative status remains to be clarified. Northern’s ace Singles player, Terry Johnson, already a full Palmerston North member, has now made himself available to represent the Centre’s most numerous club in this season’s Interclub. These moves leave a gaping hole in the top echelon of players at Northern, and will make it a real challenge for the traditionally strong North St club to repeat last season’s success. Johnson’s shift must further position Palmerston North as favourites this season.

The recent opening of the Manawatu Centre’s season at Johnston Park was favoured by idyllic weather conditions and was greatly enjoyed by all participants. So well were the Johnston Park greens running that many of the early deliveries ended up in the ditch, and their superb condition so early in the season earned many plaudits. Johnston Park will be the venue on 18th October for an Under 8yrs representative match involving the Wairarapa, Kapiti and Manawatu Centres. This fixture will be an important part of the build-up to the national Under 8yrs event which Manawatu bypassed last season but are preparing for in earnest this time. The winners on the day were the Takaro trio of Ian Johnson, Kevin Dustin and Brian Jarvis.

Thanks Denis.

Update 11^th September  2015.

Notes of interest from the Club Captain

Opening Day

Keep fingers crossed for a fine day for our opening which is on Saturday September 19. We will be playing for the Herbert Plate with games to begin at 1:00pm. Club colours please. We plan to have the new club booklet available for you on Opening Day.

Te Raki Cup

This is to be held on Saturday September 26 at Takaro with a 10:00am start. Names on the board please or return email to me.

Men’s Pants and Shorts.

A reminder that samples of these are in the clubrooms for you to try. Please read the notes on the board carefully as they relate to the different sizing of the pants and shorts. A reminder also that the final product will be the same green as our shirts, with a back pocket on the pants as well as a permanent crease. Order form on the board.

Comment on Bowls   by Denis Duffy.

As a new season arrives with a menacing chill still in the air, the recipe for stemming the rapid leakage of players from our game remains as elusive as ever, but there’s no lack of positivity among the many keen bowlers looking forward to  what lies ahead in the coming months. There have been successful outcomes for locals from events played during the Winter at Hawkes Bay’s Heretaunga indoor facility and in pre-season tournaments held in the Kapiti region. Shane Rogers started last season with a run of top results, and going into the last round of the Keith Elliott VC Invitation Fours held annually at Raumati South he was right on track for something similar. Shane had a powerful line-up in front of him in the form of Scotty McGavin, Darryl Johnson and Adam Johnston, but a slip-up in the final round saw the main prize go to a side paying long odds with the bookies. This was the Terrace End combo of Scruff Anderson ,Wally Parker, Dave Gibb and Ted Hodgson – a great win for them, but then any astute Bowls watcher knows that a team with ‘Tip-Top’ at Lead will always be dangerous. In times past the Webber Shield Open Fours was a prestigious extended event not dissimilar to the Taranaki Open, and run annually by the Heretaunga Club in Hastings on its now vanished outdoor set-up. These days it’s a three day indoor event still run by Heretaunga on its new site, where Takaro’s Barry Wynks has featured in several recent finals with various combinations. This time Barry was denied by a fine performance from the Johnston Park combo of of Tony Jensen, Stephen Love, Bruce Mudgway and Bruce Harris. Later on, at the same Hastings venue, the Palmerston North Triple of Phil Austin, Dean Gilshnan and Brial Looker took out a Classic Triples event. Then, just last weekend, Dean combined with Terry Johnson to win the Plate event at the Paraparaumu Beach Club’s Invitation 2x4x2 three day Pairs tournament.

The Palmerston North club recently farewelled its long-term greenkeeper, Ken Murray, into a well-earned retirement. Having the benefit of Ken’s undoubted expertise, shrewdness and experience for so long has been a priceless asset for the Centre’s oldest club, and Ken’s replacement, Matt Van Rysewyk, will be well positioned to follow many of the guidelines left behind by Ken.

The Takaro Club is nothing if not innovative, and a current initiative there may well see a series of evening tournaments contested under floodlights during the Summer. The lighting involved will be at a level sufficient for Bowls, but not of enough brightness to create a nuisance for neighbours.

This season’s Centre programme reveals a discernible move to   hold important events later than previously, hopefully avoiding as much as possible of the wild Spring weather, but the first event of significance will again be the Pathways Mixed 2x4x2 Pairs held over Labour Weekend.

Thanks Denis.

Philip Charles (Phil) Skoglund – 

Obituary – Denis Duffy.

Philip Charles (Phil)  Skoglund, who died at his home in Palmerston North recently, displayed a high level of aptitude in many sports, but it was in Bowls that he became an icon. In the history of his chosen game, he occupies a place in the stratosphere probably shared only by former World Singles Champion Peter Belliss. His mana and charisma were such that many, including his biographer, were quite simply in awe of him, and, even in his declining years, ordinary players would regard it a personal highlight to simply play with, against or somewhere adjacent to the local legend.

Phil created his greatest legacy by being first to break down the barriers preventing younger and fitter people from playing Bowls. When he sensationally won the 1958 National Singles title after an unbeaten run of sixteen matches, his father told him to give his age to the press as twenty-one, rather than the correct twenty.  The difference was significant then, and he was already in enough trouble for arriving at the green in his father’s ministerial car. Many clubs then enforced a minimum age for members and resented the intrusion of youth, but that mindset was henceforth on the way out. Phil was the stand-out member of a remarkable Bowls dynasty that originated with his great-grandfather  and grandfather in Greymouth and Stratford respectively. However, the family flair for the sport really appeared in the next generation. His uncle, T.T. Skoglund was a Gold Star holder, twice an Empire Games representative and the standout player nationally in the 1940’s and 50’s, while his father Phil Snr (P.O.). Skoglund won thirteen  Manawatu titles and was also well respected nationally. This was the man who ultimately became Minister of Education and source of the aforementioned black ministerial car. With wife Carol, who survives him, Phil produced sons Raymond and Philip, who together won the National Pairs title in 1999. Philip (P.J.) also followed his father into the National team on several occasions, and remains today a respected presence at top level.

Phil always cared deeply for the game of Bowls, and its sharp decline more recently in numbers and popularity, though shared with other major sports, troubled him deeply. He tirelessly threw possible solutions into the public arena via a local newspaper column and then very latterly he offered his services as President of Bowls Manawatu, for the second time, in 2013/14. During his peak years, he found time to spend several terms as a  member of the former N.Z.B.A Council, and also as a National Selector.

Phil Skoglund was noted for a high backlift and silky delivery which concealed till the last second the pace of the impending shot. Once having found his line, he would use it time after time with metronomic precision. This was allied to a razor-sharp tactical brain and ice-cool temperament. These qualities were good enough to win his Northern club’s Senior Singles only months before his death, and a host of honours earlier. That first National Singles at Christchurch was followed by four more. Between 1970 and 1972 he won an amazing treble of three Singles titles in a row, the third bringing with it a Gold Star. This was in a period when ‘The Dominion’ drew huge fields, and he was never seriously troubled in a final, often annihilating his opponents in the closing rounds. There was also a hard fought Pairs victory for his Northern club in 1972 with highly talented former jockey Vic Sellars. In 1976 at Dunedin Phil astounded the pundits by taking out both the Pairs and Fours titles with a group of club players who were largely unknown and unrated at a higher level. He later pointed out that this became possible because “we were very, very compatible and this got us through under pressure.” This closed the Skoglund tally of National titles at eight, but as late as 1991 he finished second in the Fours with sons Philip and Raymond, as he had done twice with earlier teams.

The National Selectors would have seriously contravened the current prejudice against youth if they had sent Phil to the Empire Games in 1958,  and he was again overlooked for the Perth event in 1962.  It wasn’t till the inaugural World Bowls event at Sydney’s  Kyeemagh  greens in 1966 that he finally got the nod to play for New Zealand, in Singles and Pairs.  For the next quarter of a century he was selected on a regular basis for a  series of major events, but most were contested on Northern Hemisphere greens. These were  longer, lush in growth, frequently plagued by strange irregularities, and invariably much heavier than the speed expected in New Zealand. Then there was the expectation that play would continue to a rigorous schedule through often abysmal weather conditions. More recent New Zealand representatives have found ways to at least prepare soundly for these differences and so have found fewer nasty surprises in store, but throughout Phil’s era, most international play brought with it very challenging conditions.

Despite this, Phil won a Gold, two Silver and two Bronze medals at World Championships. The Gold that finally crowned his Bowls career finally came at the Auckland event of 1988, when he won the Triples with Morgan Moffat and Ian Dickison.This represented a rare success for him in the north of the country, and was supplemented with the winning of one of his two World  Silver medals  in the Fours. Participation in five Commonwealth Games events brought a relatively lean return of two Bronze medals and a solitary Silver in the Fours at Edmonton, Canada, in 1978. Phil always insisted that his most memorable international outing was an extended Tour of South Africa in 1968. The locals were far too good at home, and the three Tests all 0-3 defeats, but Phil rated the total ‘package’ of the playing and touring experience on the High Veldt as an unforgettable one. His most bitter disappointment was being dropped from the team for the World Bowls back in South Africa in 1976 – a team that Vic Sellars was included in. At a local level, Phil won twenty-one Manawatu    Centre titles, and also three in Wellington while domiciled there in the early 1960’s. He was the driving force behind the creation of the Lion Masters’ Singles, an iconic and unique event which brought a dazzling array of national and overseas talent to the Manawatu and to the nation’s TV screens in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s.

Phil Skoglund was honoured with the O.B.E. in 1988. He was a member of several National Sports Halls of Fame, including the one established quite recently by his own sport of Bowls. He has been named as an all-time Manawatu Legend of Sport, and was four times Manawatu Sportsman of the Year. His biography, written by Denis Duffy and published by Rugby Press, appeared in 1983. Phil’s passing removes a colossus from the sporting scene, both locally in Manawatu and also nationally.

A funeral service for Phil will be held in Palmerston North on Saturday 16 May 2015 at 2pm.

RIP Skog!