Game of the Gael: Road bowling through Cork and Armagh

It’s as evocative a Cork sporting memory as having a decent hurling team and the footballers getting hammered by Kerry: that groaning realisation of a traffic jam ahead on a small country road, and a flustered father at the wheel swearing about “another f***ing score” – road bowling, Cork style.

First of all, it’s pronounced like “bowel-ing.” Bowling, as in bow and arrow, resonates with a grassy gentility that doesn’t really apply to the road stuff, although there is a ritual to it that would appeal to any blazer type: in terms of the players and just as importantly onlookers. In fact it’s mainly about the hundreds of people who trail down the road like sweaty pilot fish. Without them, it’s a couple of guys throwing stones.

You've probably seen film of road bowling over the years. Every so often articles are written about it, in a quaint, basket-weaving kinda way: the whole dying tradition and weren't things better in the old days bit. But if you haven't, go on YouTube where a smug Septic from ESPN gets some easy "ball" laughs from ripping the pee out of people trying to help him.

Basically it comes down to two competitors flinging a 28oz metal ball over a couple of miles of road, the winner being the one who takes the least amount of throws.

That’s the fundamentals. In the same way one horse running quicker from A to B than another is the fundamentals of racing. The appeal is in the detail. And as always, there is no more current, vital, grab-your-attention-by-the-iron-balls detail than money. Because where there’s bowling, there’s betting.

Thousands are bet
A score – apparently because in the past, players got 20 throws and the winner was the one who went furthest – can be gambling at its purest; one-on-one with no need for a bookie taking a cut. A walking, talking Betfair by the side of the road. Repute has it that thousands are bet, and with that kinda money floating around, you just know a few arms have got twitchy over the years, maybe even on purpose.

It’s doubtful if roguery is rampant though. The whole thing is too local for that. It’s tough to tweak one accidently-on-purpose when you realise most every eye watching probably knows your ancestry for the previous six generations. Windows don’t so much squint as baldly stare.

Even sitting in the back of a car, snaking its way through the crowds at 2mph, can feel exposed as any Amsterdam brothel window, every face turning, mouths uttering, “who’s that now?”

Anyway, it’s all still going strong. Just as so much that is supposedly local and old fashioned in the digital age has thrived instead of withered, bowling is still there, slouching along the road, holding up traffic, punting its communal brains out.

And here’s the thing: it’s holding its own in Cork, and its other traditional stronghold in Armagh. But there’s even pockets expanding elsewhere. Burst engine grills have been known to be caused by bowls flung near Drogheda and in Westport. And best of all, it’s starting to get a following in the US too, and not just from homesick Corkonians aching for Beamish and bowling.

In West Virginia, plenty who wouldn't know a crubeen from a commie participate in the North American Regional Finals. It's also played in New York and Boston. Factor in the continental European form of road bowling that has a similarly long tradition to its Irish cousin in Germany and Holland and it encourages those back here to believe there has to be a long-term future for a pursuit that offers fresh air and community as well as a furtive hint of hookery to which most Irish people warm instinctively.

Corn-fed schmaltz for tourists
This isn't an essence of Ireland argument though. There's no need to wrap up road bowling in "Ol' Sod" corn-fed schmaltz for tourists, or place it in some endangered-craft file for traditionalists to preserve.

A couple of thousand actively play in Cork right now, with up to 600 of those female. Underage grades go from Under-12 up. And the trend is very much towards expanding competitions nationwide. It’s early days yet, even for a sport that’s more than 300 years old. But with its survival assured, who’s to say it can’t expand further. Because the game will always have one very important thing going for it: to bowl well requires real skill.

In Armagh they favour an under-arm swing which looks a bit too much like an agricultural hoick. But the southern overarm action can be wonderfully fluid when carried out by a top bowler. It might look nothing special at first glance, but try getting the wristy whip on the back of a long run up and full rotation on the arm. Never mind getting the feet right, while all the time getting enough spin on the thing for it to get around a bend and you’ll find out it’s anything but easy. Then try doing it in front of hundreds of gimlet-eyed critics, many of whom are not averse to bellowing their financial pain to the skies should you make a hames of it.

It’s not this corner’s function to cheerlead anything, certainly not road bowling, and for the very good reason it doesn’t need it. However, anyone visiting the south in the next few months could well wind up getting stuck in some unlikely traffic jams. Summer is score time. Instead of swearing at the delay, why not park the car and hoof it too.