The Culcheth Eagles Masters RL team are putting down the rugby balls and picking up the bowls for a fundraising match against Padgate Bowling Club, which is exactly the sort of village-meets-town sporting chaos we can get behind.
The event is scheduled for Sunday, July 12, with play starting at 1pm at Padgate Bowling Club, Station Road, Warrington. The aim is to raise money for Padgate Bowling Club, and frankly, fair play to them. Local clubs do not run on fresh air, polite nods and someone’s cousin doing the raffle.
There is something rather brilliant about rugby league players, normally built for collisions and questionable knees, trying their hand at the calm, calculating world of bowls. It is less crash ball, more measured roll, although whether the Culcheth Eagles can resist treating the green like a training pitch remains to be seen.
Padgate Bowling Club should have the home advantage here, and possibly the advantage of knowing which end of a bowl is which. The Eagles, meanwhile, bring community spirit, competitive instincts and the sort of confidence usually seen before someone wildly misjudges the weight and sends a bowl halfway to Birchwood.
The afternoon is open to the public, with rugby fans and bowls enthusiasts both part of the mix. That is the nice bit, really - two different sporting crowds coming together for a local cause, without needing a giant corporate fanfare or a laminated strategy document.
The original report was by Jessica McKeown, and came with some slightly odd publication boilerplate mentioning USA Today and The Herald, which feels a bit grand for a bowls fundraiser in Padgate. Still, if American colleagues are now taking an interest in Station Road, Warrington, we may as well make sure they know Culcheth can roll with the best of them.