Remember when

[vulgarwolf]

People wearing a wrist guard complaining that they couldnt write wearing it hence they didnt have to score. Fine write you own score in then, cause i'm not doing it for you.

I wonder how many people these days can still remember how to actually score yourself...all the fun games when scoring, if you had the score 69 at any frame you would put a love heart around it, and it if was 111 you would make it say TiT

 

[FLOWER]

Remember when ......

We bowled jackpots after league - heaps of people

Then we played 2 Up on the floor in front of control

Then we drove home around 2 am to start work at 6 am

OH! TO BE YOUNG AGAIN !!

And the most vivid memory was of ALL THAT SMOKE .... sitting in the stands at SPC at Bankstown and could hardly see the pins.

GLAD I AM OLD !!

Flower

 

[Little Weed]

"fundraisers" went all night - 2 hours bowling, 2 hours setting the pins and 2 hours watching old horror movies, 2 hours bowling, and on and on

I hear you ask: setting the pins? where was this...........the old Upper Hutt bowl in Wellington, NZ

 

[mickyd213]

polishing your bowling balls with turtle wax

 

[AdrianS]

Heavens above!!!! Must have needed it to go reeeeeeeeal long!!

ooo i should be able to do some more

Waiting a couple months for a copy of Bowlers Journal to get to Australia to see who was doing what on tour

The smell just after the lanes had been done with the old solvent based oil

If you had a 190+ average= hero!!!!!

Being part of the 6 deep crowd around the control counter at Noarlungla bowl at the SA junior champs in 1986 because the telly behind the counter had the SPC finals live on ABC

Seeing David Wield bowl for the first time since then a few months ago and wondering what happened to his backswing!!!

Really wanting a big-ass wristguard(especially a pro release, imagine how much you could hook it with it wound right up!!)

All us Mt Gambier juniors going nuts when Sean Hyland won the first Mt Gambier cup

And asking the Adelaide and Melbourne guys for autographs afterwards(anyone want an autograph of Grant Schultz!!! )

$1000 for first semi majors in Victoria gettting 3 full squads with 108 entries

Even better, 1985 Colac Cup, 130 entries in a 10 lane centre :O

150+ bowlers at the SA and Melbourne cups

Monthly 9am Sunday morning handicap tourneys at your local centre filling the place

Watching one of them and scoring for Eric Miles for a game

Bowling centres having damn near restaurant quality food

The excitement becuase your centre had gone from Lacquer top coats to Urethane

Shield rolloffs in SA getting about 80 boys and 40 girls

And stage 1 of mens Rachiug rolloffs in Victoria getting 200 entries(so ive been told by a very reliable source)

Sounds real old but all this is from the mid 80's to about 1990, how the hell can that be 20yr ago??

 

[DaleS]

Watching Steve Lovell & Gary Kee practice at Clayfield right before Brisbane Cup, and on the lanes next to them Terry Wenban.

Bowling against the great Tom Kury my first night of adults and just about falling apart with nerves.

Rushing home from school/work so I could see if the next PBA tape had arrived.

Getting my first "super ball"drilled (yellow dot) by Andy Mackay in Toowoomba - had to peel the bag off the ball in the middle of winter and finally found a spot on the ball that was 72 - Andy said yup its legal we can drill it.

Reading Pin Action from cover to cover.

 

[DaleS]

My first ever Rauchig roll off and there were about 40 men and 20 women (back when QLD was one state).

 

[GoTheCell]

(back when QLD was one state).

Isn't it still one state? :g:

when majority of leagues used to hand out trophies instead of cash........

 

[GBS]

... using a ball polishing machine that looked like George Jetson's motor car.

George's car had a big round bubble, so did the ball polisher. Two halves, lift one side drop the ball in on the wire bristle brushes, close the lid and the rubber ball looked really good at the end.

Those were the days.

 

[jason_doust]

My first ever Rauchig roll off and there were about 40 men and 20 women (back when QLD was one state).

Bowling in the NSW Rachuig Trials as a Junior because it was the only adult event you could play in. (Juniors couldn't bowl for money in those days.) There was a 10 game roll off to make the 20 (wo)man team trials!

Making the roll-off (and almost the team) at 16.

Remember when the manager made a point of working nights about once a month to catch up with the late league players? For that matter, remember late leagues of five (wo)man teams after an early shift of the same? And social play going on after the late shift at about 10:30 on a weeknight? That was Parramatta Superbowl every week in the 80's. The place would just hum with activity...

On a rainy weekend, you'd wait three hours for lanes. Unless you were a regular and the counter staff would slip you in ahead of the social bowlers at league practice rate.

 

[ThEOnE]

Bowling centres having damn near restaurant quality food

The excitement becuase your centre had gone from Lacquer top coats to Urethane



Sounds real old but all this is from the mid 80's to about 1990, how the hell can that be 20yr ago??

STILL WAITING FOR BOTH

 

[Jerry8-10]

I remember my first set of lifters (yellow) bought from Terry Maher in 1982 our driller scratched his head and proceeded to drill both holes into each other, he then cut off the excess lifter and had superglue running everywhere, I still thought they were great.

 

[lovey]

I remember bowling in the AWA League at St Leonards when I first started at 10.00pm,then after that bowling pot games with the likes of Mackie, Batson, Peel, Hoskins, Everson,Froebel,Dosher. What an experience bowling with those guys.One thing, you learnt alot from those guys. In the crowd watching, was a young Andrew Frawley,he was about 7 ft 13 in those days.Great memories.
Cheers Lovey

 

[rum]

I remember when
We wore REAL bowling shirts (Knapes of Melbourne were the brand of choice) you looked along the lanes and would see these well cut shirts emblazioned with colour and a SPONSORS name/logos

FRITHS were "THE" bowling shoe

The ashtrays were used for coins from open and beer frames.

The Center staff knew you and better still they knew Bowling

Marion Smith (SA) was only chaging 10C for "DKC" Membership - and the list goes on

GEE I LOVED THE REAL GAME OF TENPIN

KJ

 

[Tiger]

Some good stuff on this thread!

Some others:

When Geoff Vince was centre manager at Moonah and he used hire out PBA tapes (on Beta) for $1 to league bowlers back in the 80's.
I've still got most of them stored away back at my place.
We were all trying to be Pete Weber, Holman, Roth, Amleto etc - great times!

When the 9:30pm Wednesday night league was 18 x 4 and it was played in by mostly shift workers - and that was by no means the biggest league going around back then.
Looking at the leagues now, that number would be the biggest.

When Moonah was the ONLY centre in this state, then all of a sudden, in the blink of an eye there were five.

When we had nearly 1,600 adult league bowlers registered in Hobes, and they had about 2,000 up the Coast when Devonport & Burnie were at their peak.

The paper pin things you had with National Bowling Week printed on them back in the 80's (I've still got one tucked away at home somewhere) where you got really cheap games, the whole week was heavily publicised and all the sweep-bar's at the bowl had big hoardings on them.

When you walked into a centre and it was mostly about bowling - not cluttered up with teeming hordes of those arcade games everywhere.

When you walked into Moonah Bowl on any day of the week and you would see the diminutive figure of Julius Sajben bowling 30+ games a day, every day for six months a year complete with his cup of tea and about 9 sugars in it! - he was Polish or Czech (I think) and owned a tin mine up on the West Coast and would mine it for 6 months, then bowl the other 6 months.

The excitement of waiting for telecasts of Australian bowling on FTA television.

When leagues & tournaments had atmosphere!

I'll think of more later no doubt.

PS: Weren't they called "DFC" (Dumb F*ckers Club) cards Rum?

 

[Brenton_Davy]

Ah, yes, the DFC cards.

When Rachuig Trials in Sa had to be run at Cross Road or Woodville, because you needed a 32 lane house to hold the 150 nominees we used to get for the qualifying rounds

 

[Anamul]

Having my League ave go up 20+ pins just prior to the Meblourne Cup - the Lanes were resufaced just prior to the Cup. Driving for 3/4 of an hour to watch the Singles League at Nth Boxhill Squash Bowl. Spending from Opening til finished scoring at the Melbourne Cup.

 

[rum]

NOT TO MENTION RACHUIG WITH SPECTATORS CRAMMED TO THE RAFTERS IN MAKE SHIFT STANDS.

 

[lovey]

Bowling in the Coca Cola Classic TV show at Logan City in Brisbane.Bob Cook and I turned up at the bowling centre in the morning to bowl and there was a queue a mile long waiting to get into the centre.Where have the crowds gone,can someone tell me.Has the game changed that much since the 80's 90's.Lets try and do something about it.
Cheers Lovey

 

[rum]

REMEMBER THE CHARATERS OF THE SPORT, LIKE VIC BUBNIW, WITH HIS BIG FLARES AND COLOURED INSERTS ( NOT THE FLARES AND INSERTS WE KNOW IN TODAYS GAME LOL) PLUS THE DOLLY BIRDS THAT FOLLOWED HIM AROUND

KJ