Australia's barefoot bowlers revitalise lawn bowls

SYDNEY, May 1 (Reuters) Lawn bowls has long had the reputation of a genteel game enjoyed mainly by the grey hair set, but a visit to a buzzing Sydney club on a sunny Saturday paints a very different picture.

The traditional white bowlers' uniform, which earned lawn bowlers the disparaging nickname ''leghorns'' referring to old chickens bent over feeding, are nowhere to be seen.

Instead the manicured lawns are being walked on by a hip bunch of young barefoot bowlers in designer jeans, board shorts and T-shirts. ''It's just a bit of fun and it gets everyone involved,'' said Adam Whittle, sipping a beer waiting for his turn to bowl at the Paddington bowls club where he is celebrating his 30th birthday.

The game, which is believed to date back to thirteenth century Britain, is relatively easy for newcomers. It involves rolling a large, usually brown or black, asymmetrical ball as close as possible to a small white ball, known as the jack.

The game is most popular in Commonwealth countries like Canada and New Zealand, along with Australia and the British Isles, but it has also caught on in pockets of Scandinavia.

Britain was the first country to attempt to widen the appeal of the game, adapting it to a snappier, televised indoor format from the late 1970s. These days all major bowls countries look to attract younger players via youth programmes and competitions.

''Now the clubs are offering younger people the chance to play bowls on a midweek night, along with a beer and a barbie (barbecue). It's become a more attractive brand,'' said Bowls Australia spokesman John Clark.

HIP SPORT St. Kilda bowls club in Melbourne has been at the vanguard of the drive to attract a new generation of bowls players.

Formed in 1865, it's the second oldest bowls club in Australia, but has long since distanced itself from the game's fusty image, attracting a hip young clientele with a relaxed atmosphere and a broad range of social activities.

''Back in the late '90s the club almost collapsed, we were down to about 12 players, most of the older players had left,'' says St. Kilda president David Strangward.

It was then that the club decided it had to appeal to younger people to secure its long-term future.

St. Kilda was helped by its position at the heart of the trendy seaside suburb, and its street-cred was given a big boost when the popular twenty-something TV drama ''The Secret Life of Us'' used it as a prominent location.

''It went through a period when it was more of a nightclub than a bowling club,'' says Strangward, who himself was a social member long before he took to the green.

Inevitably, with the social aspect of the game to the fore, St. Kilda has had the odd disciplinary problem and Strangward admits that the atmosphere has been, in his words, ''like a public-bar'' at times.

But with membership now up to around 150, he adds that the club is focusing more on its code of conduct and plays down any suggestion of tension between older players and the young blood.

''In fact, our younger players enjoy mixing with the old folks and getting the stories,'' says Strangward.

Clark at Bowls Australia says the game needs to build on the success of clubs like St Kilda in attracting young social players by converting them into serious competitors.

''The challenge for us is to get those people to graduate through to become actual members and play the game more seriously.'' Reuters RJ VP0940