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2023/24 EIBA PRESIDENT STEVE BOUGHTON FOUND BOWLS AFTER INJURY FORCED HIM TO
GIVE UP COMPETITIVE SQUASH
Steve Boughton, right
Outgoing EIBA President Steve Boughton is no stranger to
playing sport.
When the other children in his street made the school football team,
he wanted in on the action. Then came rugby in the winter and tennis
in the summer.
After leaving school, Steve played scrum half for Northampton
Old Boys and High Wycombe before having to stop because of poor
eyesight and played tennis for his local clubs, enjoying stints as
captain.
The first company he worked for had a squash court
in the sports ground and Steve would later play in a national
league. The achievements are remarkable because when Steve was
born in 1943 his parents were told that he would never walk. "My
left leg was seriously deformed," he explained, "The main problem
was talipes (better known as a club foot), but I also had a shortage
in the leg itself. "Thanks to the relentless persistence of my
parents I had 23 operations at either Manfield Orthopaedic Hospital
Northampton and Great Ormond Street Hospital, by the time I was 12
years old and they enabled me not only to walk, but to pursue
sporting activities provided my left ankle was supported. "As
the years passed the need for ankle support subsided, though my left
ankle is still somewhat weak, my left foot is five shoe sizes
shorter than my right foot and I have a half inch shortage in my
left leg - causing strain in my lower back and some imbalance. "I
would not presume to say that I achieved top standards in any of the
sports I played, but had great pleasure from them."
Steve
says despite not reaching elite level himself, he was able to mix
with sports stars. "In rugby I was trained by, or played with,
several British Lions and England Internationals," he added. "In
tennis I played with a Wimbledon player and in squash with an
England trialist. Furthermore I worked for a couple of years with a
Commonwealth Games athlete who was the first British female to run
800 metres in under two minutes. "What this has given me is an
appreciation of the dedication and hard work needed to reach the top
in any sport, together with a keen interest in the way top
performers think about their sport."
Bowls came into Steve's
life at the age of 37 after he put his back out playing squash.
"After about six months the main-stream medical professionals
told me that there was nothing they could do and I would have to
live with the pain," he said. "A friend at work suggested that I
should see his osteopath and he said that he could put me right, but
on condition that I never played competitive squash again. There was
no real option, but once the treatment was completed I became
depressed and morbid. "When I was visiting my parents, my father
took me to Northampton Indoor Club and I found that it was a game I
could play. "Finding bowls did me a power of good - both
physically and mentally. To start with, I again had a sport I could
enjoy. Also, I found that everyone I met was very friendly. In
squash I had entered the "veteran" category, but I would arrive at
the bowls club and people would say"Here comes young Steve". You can
imagine what that did for my ego!"
In terms of highlights,
Steve lists winning the club championships as an underdog and being
selected for his first Liberty Trophy match.
He said: "In
1995 I was invited to go on a tour to South Africa. About 70 of us
from the Worcester area went for three weeks and played 13 matches
in Durban and Cape Town. Apartheid had only recently ended and it
was a real eye opener to see the country undergoing a difficult
transition.
"We played two matches in the South African city
of Worcester, which in the wine growing area and is the home of the
KWV brandy distillery. The local hospitality flowed very freely and
I swear there were at least two jacks at the other end of the rink
for both matches. Needless to say, we lost, but the experience was
marvellous.
"During the tour my wife, Carol, and I had a
three day rest, so we hired a combi and went into a game reserve to
explore the wildlife and Zulu culture. Other people on the tour
thought we would never return, but that trip started a love of
Africa in us both and we have since travelled extensively in
sub-Saharan East Africa."
The EIBA presidential term came
about through former president Margaret Allen.
Steve said:
"I'd been playing both indoors and outdoors for Worcestershire for
some time and thoroughly enjoyed those opportunities, so when I was
approached to stand for the presidency of Worcestershire IBA I was
happy to do so. My first term was 1997/8 and I have been President
twice more since then in 2004/5 and 2014/15. That led on to being
elected as President of the Midland Counties IBA in 2000/01 and
again in 2015/16.
"I had no notion of becoming involved with
the EIBA until I went on a bowls tour to Cyprus and met Margaret who
became a friend. She persuaded me that I should stand and people
within Worcestershire and the wider Midland Counties were
encouraging. Equally, if not more important, my wife Carol said that
she would bear with the inevitable disruption to our married life,
so I stood and was lucky enough to be elected as Junior
Vice-President."
For Steve there have been many standout
moments.
"I have always enjoyed seeing new places, meeting
people and talking about their way of doing things, so going to
different parts of the country for cresidential celebration games
has been a delight," he said. "I have also always been fascinated to
see how top level performers approach their particular sport, so
having the opportunity to mix with the best in bowls has been both
an honour and great pleasure. "I was able to receive the Gedling
Trophy and the Hilton Trophy on behalf of the English teams and
present the Family Pairs National Championship to Tom and Dan Holmes
from my own Indoor Club which were brilliant moments."
Having
been involved in so many different sports, for so long, I'm
interested in Steve's views about what more bowls can do to raise
its profile.
"I have been convinced for a long time that the
sports that get national press and media coverage do better than
those which do not," he said. "This can be seen at big multi-sport
events when smaller sports get coverage and see a surge of interest
and new membership.
"In my opinion bowls suffers because it
is too fragmented. Tennis, for instance, does not have separate
national bodies for indoor and outdoor, so the LTA speaks for the
whole game. We have separate national bodies for the different
manifestations of our game and the result is that the voice of bowls
is weakened. The problem, as I see it, is that each branch of bowls
is organised very differently. I appreciate the reasons for this,
but those very reasons make it almost impossible to speak with one
voice.
"I do not pretend to know what the answer is, but I do
think that, without coverage, the vast majority of people will never
appreciate the subtleties of the game and we will be stuck with the
image of "old men's marbles" played only by people over a certain
age. In my working life I sat on several joint industry working
groups (particularly when the Financial Ombudsman Service was being
created) and saw how solutions can be found to apparently
insurmountable problems given good will and co-operation by the
parties concerned. Perhaps something along these lines could be
tried for bowls.
"I know that this is not an original opinion
and more knowledgeable people than me will say that it has been
tried before. Indeed, some will say it is very radical, but lots of
initiatives to promote our game have been tried in recent years and
none have achieved a breakthrough. Perhaps some radical thinking is
called for."
Sian Honnor.
We'd love to know what bowls means to you,
get in touch at info@eiba.co.uk
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Interview with Jack Goodland |
June 2024
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