Short mat indoor bowling

A popular version of the game involves six people, three in each team. You have a lead player a second and a skip. but first let's look at how things look when the bowls arrive at the end of the mat. The purpose is to be the team with one or more bowls nearest to the jack. The jack is that small yellow ball in the picture. One lead player has expertly bowled along the 45 foot mat and reached the jack. The other one has also made quite a reasonable shot. This is a game which is good for introducing new players as it means you have more possibilities of what may happen, good or not so good.

You can also see from this picture that there is another mat in the hall. Actually there are three mats altogether. That means that you can have eigthteen people playing at the same time. Actually you can also have teams of four so you can have twenty four people all playing at once. This is a small village hall. In bigger halls you can have far more mats, but it is a game ideally suited to small halls. In fact it was invented for this purpose.

The first player now has two woods near the jack. The second lead player must now try to get nearer the jack. Each player in this version of the game has two woods to bowl before the second players bowl their's one at a time, taking turns.

The fourth wood to arrive has made no difference, the first lead player still has two woods nearest the jack. How dull this sounds in cold print but it is really fascinating as each player makes their contribution. The situation could change dramatically. If a new player were to bowl a wood so that it was some way behind the jack, on his subsequent bowl he could aim for the bowl on the jack, hit it and the jack would be pushed back to his own wood and he could win the end. There are almost endless possibilities.

Let's look at some ways a wood can be lost from play. If a wood rolls off the side of the mat, it is placed behind the fender and not counted in the score. If the wood hits the block in the middle of the mat, it is removed from play. See the fender on the picture above; it is best seen on the far mat. Also if the wood crosses the line near the fender the ditch line it is also removed, UNLESS it has touched the jack in which case it is called a "toucher" and marked with chalk. Although it is in the "ditch" it still counts and the jack may be knocked back to it. So a great deal of precision is needed to avoid these pitfalls.

In the picture above I have said there is one more wood to come to the head. How do I know this? Well you can count seven woods on the mat, then there are four behind the fender. Twelve woods are played by three players on each team, so there we have it, one more to come. The ones behind the fender have either gone off the side, or hit the block, the piece of wood in the centre of the mat, or they have gone right through into the ditch, that's the section behind the white line by the fender. You can see the block in the previous picture. Let's look at all those white lines and see what they are for. We have just mentioned the ditch line near the fender. If your wood goes past this it is taken off. Well that is, except when you touch the jack with the wood on the way past. then it is a "toucher" and although it is in the ditch it stays on and counts in the play. If someone knocks the jack back to this wood it will be said to be "holding" and so could win the end.

The two white lines in the ditch at right angles to the ditch line are to mark the spot where you put the mat. You can see the mat in the next picture. You have to keep one foot on this mat when you bowl the wood. It must not go over the edge of the mat. It is best to crouch down as low as possible to bowl the wood. your other foot must stay within the remaining white lines. You may wish to bowl to the right of the block, forehand if you are right-handed, or to the left of the block, back-hand. The wood has a bias, an off centre weight which pulls the wood in one direction, so you have to get used to how this works, but when you are used to it you can use it to advantage. Holding the wood you gently swing your arm back and then forward like a pendulum and then release the wood.

Take a look at this web site if you want to know more about the rules and also the possibility of starting a club. English Shortmat bowling Association

Short mat bowls is great fun to play, can be played by beginners, but also requires great skill to play it well. However there is a social side to it. Much older people might only want two or three games in an evening, then they can sit out and enjoy a good natter. Also clubs will organize a tournament where players from other clubs will come in for a day's play. There will be too many teams to play all at once so again we can get on with the good work of making friends. Another good thing happens on these days. Each team pays to enter and the money raised from that and from selling food, and draw tickets, goes to a charity. So we all have a good time, play some bowls and make some money for charity. What could be better.

You always meet nice people at bowls because it is a game where sometimes you can't get anything right, so you have to be prepared to make a fool of yourself. Only nice people can cope with that.

It is also fantastically cheap. Our club charges 1 GBP for an evening's play !! There are special clothes to wear for competitions but you don't need these at first. Also a set of four woods new will be around 100GBP but the club loans woods out to beginners. Then when you want some you can often pick them up second hand for about 50 GBP. They will last you a lifetime.

If the toucher is straddling the ditch line as in the picture above, it can be moved by any wood. However if the toucher is completely in the ditch it can only be moved by another toucher. This is why we put a chalk mark around the toucher and the jack when they are completely in the ditch, so that we can replace them correctly if they are moved by a non toucher. Many of these rules are best learnt while playing the game. If the jack is in the ditch it is said to be dead. If the jack is straddling the ditch line you can still hit it and move it with your wood. That wood will than be a toucher. If the jack is still live and a wood just passes it but rolls back onto it it is also a toucher. Because of this the wood should not be removed until it has come to rest. Similarly a wood should not be removed as it goes over the ditch line as the bias may make it roll back away from the ditch line keeping it in play. When the jack is in the ditch you need to see if you have any touchers which you can knock up to be near the jack in the ditch. As I said earlier the rules of short mat bowls are best learnt by playing the game with someone more experienced than yourself.

In the above pictures you can see that a wood has a large circle on one side and a small one on the other. The small circle is where the bias is and the wood will pull in this direction partway down the mat. This means that to stay on the mat it must be bowled with the large circle facing the edge of the mat, otherwise it will pull off the mat, and everyone will shout "wrong bias" as bowlers love to tease each other. Some woods pull over more than others. If you want to bowl the other side of the mat, back hand, you have to turn the wood around.

Mats vary, some are fast and some slow. This all adds variety. On a slow mat you have to use more weight in order to arrive at the head. You have to be very careful not to use too much weight on a fast mat.

Some mats are very tricky because they swing over instead of playing straight. This is not really the mat doing this but the floor underneath. Our club has a wooden floor and it is the uneveness in this which makes it swing. Again this adds variety.

The game of short mat bowls was invented so that it could be used in small village halls. Once you have bought your bowls and mats there is little expense after that. You need storage space and the mats need to be rolled up on a special frame to keep them safe and tidy till needed.
If you are seriously interested in the game and it is not known in your part of the world the English short mat bowling association would be glad to help. I have given their website above.