Many years ago a large percentage of crown green bowlers put away their bowls at the end of October and muscles were not again flexed until early April but that has now all changed.

Over the past 20 years many crown green bowlers have purchased bowls to take part in the many indoor centres that now exist in crown green areas.

The boom in indoor bowls in the early eighties was to some extent almost unnoticed.

Indoor bowls started to grow in different ways. Short mat and carpet bowls was and is still played in church halls, schools, sports halls and other buildings large and convenient enough to roll down a carpet and take up after use.

The short mat game flourishes in Scotland and Wales where it is highly organised and has various forms in England.

A number of sports centres in all areas of the country have roll up carpets to provide as many as four rinks. But halls adapted for indoor bowls bear little comparison to the splendid indoor stadia that have sprung up all over the country which serve the purpose of providing luxurious green carpeted playing arenas, but also being the pub, club and second home to many crown green bowlers.

The majority of the indoor centres are spacious self contained clubs with bars and lounges, dressing room accommodation, catering facilities, and committee, television and recreation rooms.

Some indoor clubs are privately owned by their club members who appoint trustees or directors to run them. Some are owned by private individuals. Others are owned and run by local authorities, forming in those cases part of a sports complex.

One of the most luxurious indoor complexes in the country when it was built is at Darlington which cost at the time nearly one million pounds and there are others that are similar.

Crown green bowlers have always maintained that they can more than hold their own on an indoor carpet against any of their flat green counterparts as proved by Noel Burrows in the Super Bowl in 1985 and the interest generated by that performance has in some way led to more crown green bowlers turning indoors during the winter and for the good of Bowls as a sport long may that continue.

Staffordshire outfit Chadsmoor took the £1,000 first prize in the Summit Garage sponsored Staffordshire Premier League defeating on of their nearest challengers Tanworth by 27 in their last match. The 2007 Champions Greville finished second after losing to Woodfield by 8.