How it began
What started as an 80th birthday trip to New York turned into a rather unexpected international bowls connection. Roger Moore explains how a Sunday morning stroll through Central Park led to an invitation that nobody at Billinghurst Bowling Club was expecting.
Q: Roger, how did you find yourself in New York in the first place?
Roger: It really started back in November 2024. My son said to me, “You’re 80 next year, aren’t you, Dad? And you’ve never been to New York?”
I hadn’t, so he said he’d like to take me as an 80th birthday present. He’d been seven or eight times and knew his way around, so the plan was that we’d go for a weekend and do the works.
My birthday is in February and I certainly didn’t fancy New York in February – far too cold! So we settled on the last weekend in May.
Q: And presumably bowls wasn't on the itinerary?
Roger: Not at all! We had a fantastic weekend doing all the sights, and on the Sunday my son suggested we go to Central Park.
We saw the castle, the open-air theatre and Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial, where people were singing Beatles songs. We wandered around the lakes and then started walking towards the other end of the park.
There were three baseball pitches on our right and we stopped to watch for a while. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something on a ridge over to the left.
I thought, “Hold on a minute. It looks as though they’re playing lawn green bowls over there. Surely not in Central Park?”
Nobody had ever told me there was a bowls green in Central Park.
Q: As a bowler, you weren't going to walk past without taking a closer look…
Roger: Absolutely not! I said to my son, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to investigate this.”
I went over and they were having what we’d call a roll-up – just a practice. There was a little fence around the green, so I started chatting to some of the players and happened to mention that I played bowls back in the UK.
One of them said, “Would you like to join us?”
I said, “Really?”
And that was it. They welcomed me onto the green, introduced me to everyone and found me some woods. Luckily, I was wearing Skechers with flat soles, so my shoes were fine for the green.
Q: So a sightseeing trip to Central Park turned into an afternoon's bowling?
Roger: It did! I had a roll-up with three or four of them and played for probably 45 minutes to an hour.
Eventually I had to say, “Look, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go because my son has other excursions arranged!”
They were absolutely lovely about it and off we went.
Q: But that wasn't quite the end of it, was it?
Roger: No. When we got home, I thought it had been incredibly kind of them to let a complete stranger come onto their green and play, so I wanted to send them an email to say thank you.
I Googled them and discovered it was the Central Park Lawn Bowls and Croquet Club. They have a green for bowls and another for croquet, sharing the clubhouse.
I sent them a note saying, essentially, “I don't know if you remember me, but you welcomed me onto the green and I wanted to say how much I enjoyed it and what a pleasure it was to meet you all.”
I wasn't expecting anything back.
Q: But a few days later, an email arrived…
Roger: Yes – and this was the surprise.
They replied saying they were pleased I'd enjoyed my time with them and that it had been lovely to meet me.
Then they said that the following year would be their centenary – and they would like me and my bowls club to come over to New York and help them celebrate it.
I just thought, “What? Really?”
I showed the email to Barry and his reaction was much the same!
An emergency committee meeting followed – and, as they say, the rest is history.