About Us
Woolston & District Bowling Club has a proud heritage
A brief history of Woolston & District Bowling Club
The inaugural meeting of the Woolston & District Bowling Club was held on Saturday 2nd July 1913, in the building which forms the core of our present clubhouse.
This meeting was followed by a game of bowls by those present.
In The Beginning
The green had been laid & the clubhouse built during 1912 by our founder Harry Kneller, a local builder who owned the land.
1920s
During the 1920s, the clubhouse and the green were given freehold to the members by Mr Kneller’s family following his death.
The Clubhouse
The clubhouse was extended in 1968 and one of the two snooker tables was removed. The second followed soon after, to make room for the growing membership.
Further extensions and alterations to the clubhouse have been made in subsequent years and work still continues to improve the facilities for members. Much of the work was, and still is, performed voluntarily by members for the benefit of all
The Golden Era 60s, 70s & 80s
During this time Jock Latto, an England international player joined the club and during his time at Woolston he achieved 105 Middleton Cup caps for Hampshire, a record that will surely never be broken.
Latto's Legacy
His presence inspired and encouraged other members to reach the heights and the success of teams and individuals may be followed on our Honours’ Boards. In recent years success has been harder to achieve, although a Club Four did win the Hampshire Four’s Cup in 2001 and proceeded to National Quarter Finals at Worthing.
Ladies Day
The inaugural meeting is celebrated each year, on the first Saturday in July, by the club’s Ladies’ Day, when the wives and widows are entertained on the green and then in the clubhouse for tea provided by the members.
Harry Kneller
Our founder is also remembered by the Presidents’ Prize Competition (Harry Kneller Trophy). The club currently fields four teams in Southampton and District Leagues
Club Days
Our Championship team plays on Thursdays and Combination teams play on Tuesdays. Friendly matches are normally played on Saturdays and Sundays, with many fixtures throughout the season.
2013 - Our Centenary Year
The club proudly celebrated its centenary in 2013, hosting a number of special events throughout the season to mark this momentous occasion, two particular highlights being the staging of separate friendly matches against representatives of Bowls England and the Chelsea Pensioners, the latter proving to be a very colourful occasion, when our illustrious visitors arrived wearing their full regalia, for which they are renowned!
Further improvements to our facilities have continued apace, the most significant being the installation of what is probably the most effective floodlighting system within the Southampton & District area. This has not only proved to be of great assistance during league matches late in the season, where the fading light had previously made play difficult towards the end of each match, but also enabled us to hold both internal and open competitions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings during late August and throughout September, thus bringing some very welcome additional revenue and goodwill into the club.
Thanks to the generosity of a long-standing member, an enhanced CCTV system was purchased and installed, this has consequently provided increased within the clubhouse and outside, which has helped to enhance the security of the premises accordingly.
Covid 19
No-one could ever have predicted the extraordinary events of 2020, when Coronavirus (COVID-19 – a newly discovered & highly infectious disease, which had originated in China) finally reached our shores during the February of that year and the resulting pandemic subsequently sweeping throughout the UK at an extraordinary pace.
This resulted in a nationwide “lockdown” being imposed by the government, which commenced on March 23rd and remained in force for 12 weeks in total. Like all establishments within the “hospitality” industry, the club was forced to shut completely from that point until July 4th, when some of the restrictions were lifted, thus allowing us to reopen, albeit with strict safety precautions in place to prevent any risk of the virus being spread therein.
Unfortunately, this resulted in the cancellation of both our league and friendly matches, the enforced closure of all other clubs meaning that such games were impossible to stage and so the outcome was that the entire calendar of events had to be abandoned. However, the “Woolston spirit” pervaded and, as soon as bowling was permitted, albeit in a restricted format, not only did the club competition matches get played, but we were also able to hold the floodlit competitions as well, these being very well subscribed as a result.
Thanks to a very dedicated team of volunteers and their wives, it was possible to staff the bar at zero cost and so this helped the club’s finances greatly, given that it had received no income for four months beforehand and thus a tremendous debt of gratitude was owed to them for ensuring the continued survival of the club, during such challenging times.
Despite a great deal of uncertainty, given the ever-changing situation with COVID-19, the club tour to Romford was also able to proceed as usual, Woolston certainly being the sole club in Hampshire to have one that year (and possibly, the only one in England!), hence all participating members were actually able to enjoy a much-needed break, it proving to be a very welcome relief after all the restrictions previously imposed on society!
Sadly, owing to a massive second & even worse outbreak of Coronavirus during the autumn, further swingeing restrictions on the hospitality industry were reimposed, including two more periods of lockdown, the third one continuing into March 2021, so the club was again forced to close throughout, which had yet another major impact on our finances, particularly over the Christmas & New Year periods.
WOOLSTON & DISTRICT BOWLING CLUB is highly regarded in the Southampton District and beyond for its traditions and for its sportsmanship, competitiveness, and standards of behaviour, both on and off the green.
Our hospitality is renowned countrywide, and your current committee would wish that, in the future, these words ring as true then, as they do now
Harry Kneller
Sholing-born Kneller was a self-made entrepreneur who renovated a pair of condemned cottages on Sholing Common in 1898 and ended up owning more than 500 houses 15 years later.
Among the assets of this keen sportsman was a disused sand pit which had been excavated to provide ballast for ships built in the Thornycroft shipyard and on this site at Temple Road Kneller laid out four tennis courts and a bowling green complete with clubhouse at his own expense.
The club’s roots are remembered today, first by the Harry Kneller Cup – presented to the club by his widow after he died in 1952 – and then by Ladies’ Day which commemorates that founding day on the first Saturday in July every year.
Traditionally this is the only day of the season when the ladies of Woolston are permitted on the green. It is a rare privilege since Woolston is an all-male club though the fairer sex are allowed these days when visiting clubs field mixed teams.
Date of birth:
18 November 1992
Members Area
Official App
Official W&DBC App coming soon for Members!
