Guinness™  World Record for Marathon Bowling

Lol Mounteney, Cyril Berrill, Mick Brookes, Alan Pick, Steve Rawnsley and Bill Williams, all members of St. Margaret’s

Co-operative Bowls Club, in  Birstall, Leicester have broken the  Guinness World Record for  non-stop bowling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The group took to the green at noon on Thursday June 17th and didn’t step off it until 8 am on Sunday June 20th, 68 hours later.

 

The Club contacted  Guinness World  Records and registered our challenge after finding the information on the Guinness World Records website. The original record was set by Horley Bowling Club in 1999, but it has been beaten several times since then and the old record, on June 17th 2004, stood at 54.5 hours and was set by Lloyds’s Hotel Bowls Club, in Manchester, earlier this year.

 

The six bowlers formed two teams of three and played a pairs game. Two from each team bowled and one rested. They changed every hour with the skip coming off, the lead going to skip and the resting player going to play lead. This helped to maintain concentration.

 

At all times during the marathon

attempt, two independent witnesses

were present to ensure that the rules

were adhered to and to record the

progress in the log book. Also, a

medically qualified person was on

hand at all times. These three people

were not allowed to be on duty for more than 4 hours at a time so during the event we used 27 witnesses and 12 nurses.

In total the group bowled 9,696 bowls in 606 ends. They rolled the bowls170 miles, walked 14 miles each and lifted a total of 2.5 tonnes each.

 

 

 

 

 

They were spurred on by two cabaret shows, two visiting Bowls Clubs playing matches, E.B.A. Senior Vice President John Tolley playing a few ends, a car boot sale, a balloon race and a festival atmosphere created by other members of the Club.

 

The group raised £7,000 whilst breaking the record. The money has been donated equally between the Leicester Royal Infirmary Neo Natal Hearing Unit, the Glenfield Hospital Cardiology Unit and Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Headway, which treats people with brain injuries.

 

We would like to thank ALL of our supporters, friends and sponsors for backing the record attempt, without you it would have been impossible.

 

 

 

Some thoughts.

 

“It has been a great experience and we are all proud to have done it. When we decided to break the record, it was set at 48 hours but was broken another fivetimes before we started our attempt, so the target was going up all the time.”

 

“I was very confident of breaking the record when we started, not just because I had great faith in the other five bowlers, who I know were 100% committed to the attempt, but because of the fantastic enthusiasm and support we were to receive from our Club.”

 

This enthusiasm was apparent from the first day I mentioned the record to the members well over a year before the start date. We had numerous ‘Marathon meetings’ sometimes attended by upwards of 30 people. Everyone helped with the format of what turned out to be a fantastic weekend. The Guinness rules are cast in stone, but 3 days and nights of witnesses, nurses, entertainment, catering, bar staff, bowling and resting arrangements were undertaken with what might be termed a ‘Dunkirk Spirit’. Not only was it well organised but everything went according to plan during the weekend.