joelsback said:
How come there is only 4 girls?
Because very few teenage girls bowl competitively in Tassie.
Very expensive sport to play if you want to do more than bowl socially.
Politics seems to rear its head a fair bit too, which can turn them away from the sport.
joelsback said:
There should be more girls then that!
All gets down to economics. Most can't (or thier parents can't) afford to send them away, and bowl all the lead up tournaments in the meantime.
Not only that, but there just aren't the numbers of juniors (or adults for that matter) around like there once was.
I can remember in the late 80's bowling in a junior singles league at Moonah which had some very good players in it. It had quite a decent number of players in it.
In my last year in juniors (1993) I bowled in a junior league part-time which had about 50-60 junior bowlers in it. Hardly any of those bowlers are now bowling, and there is really only one (I think) non-bumper bowling league for juniors now - it's more a social thing now.
joelsback said:
So there is only 4 girls in the whole of tassies population that bowls in non-Bumpers.
No, there are obviously more. But they are not "competitive bowling oriented". Most of them are just in it socially, for something to kill some time. You can't force these girls to bowl for the State team when they are not interested in it.
joelsback said:
Come on tassie we can do better!
With a population as small as Tassie's I can't see it changing in the future.
The sport has just got too expensive now, and people won't pay that sort of money anymore. The STTBA (now HTBA) had 1577 members in 1992 (with good junior numbers), but nowdays its around 410 I think.
As a sport we'll always struggle to attract new players with the current costs involved. Hell, even I'm battling to afford to bowl now.
Besides which, just about every sport in Tasmania is struggling in someway - look at local football, soccer, hockey and basketball - and bowling is no different.
I say good luck, and congratulations to the girls that rolled off.
