Having been a resident of Wimbledon Park for 52 years and having read the Residents' Association newsletter regularly regarding the update on the area and the amenities on offer, it saddens me that not once has the Wimbledon Park Bowling Club been mentioned.

Certainly, I realise that lawn bowls does not conjure up the vast amounts of money that are regularly talked about in football or tennis. In some respects I and many others would not wish it to, for money has ruined many sporting pastimes.

However, bowls can be whatever you want - from a pleasant pastime at weekends or evenings in the company of others ( or indeed on your own ), to one of intense competition at club, area, county or, if you are fortunate enough, international level.

Bowls was once said to be an old person's game, but nowadays it is a young person's game that older people can play. The World Champions, for instance, are in their late twenties or early thirties.

Wimbledon Park Bowling Club can be found adjacent to the two putting greens in Wimbledon Park and the clubhouse can easily be seen as you enter the park from Revelstoke Road entrance. The clock above the clubhouse, which I am sure many of you have seen, was presented to the Wimbledon Park Ladies Bowling Club by the English Ladies Bowling Association many years ago, when the National England finals were held on these once immaculate greens. I can remember as a young boy walking into the park and seeing cars and coaches, hundreds of people, and alongside the greens were the flags of all the nations represented there.

Many of the locals clubs were used as practice greens or as venues for the early rounds of the finals. Durnsford Road recreation ground was almost a huge car park accommodating the vast numbers of coaches that brought not only players and officials but their supporters also.