By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
DANDENONG City Bowling Club and its green was meant to last little more than a season – so said a less-than-prescient Journal columnist 131 years ago.
According to the club’s centenary book compiled by former Journal editor Greg Dickson, the columnist wrote: “So we are to have a bowling green in Dandenong prepared for the old fogies.
“But then again, how much will it cost to get the thing in working order, and how long will it last?
“As a rule, affairs in Dandenong generally run a season and a half, and then squash goes the whole concern – unless ’tis cricket…”
Undeterred by such scepticism, a tailor R.H. Cooling called a “meeting of gentlemen favorable to the formation of a bowling green” for what was reportedly a little-known game at the time.
Among his supporters was “prominent local identity” Colonel T. Bruce Hutton, who would become the club’s first president.
The Dandenong Bowling Association then applied to the council for a “chain and a half square” in Dandenong Park for a green.
As it turns out, Dandenong’s first bowling green was created before the town – described as “only a small hamlet” – had a town hall.
The club has since survived as Dandenong’s oldest continuous sporting body, states the club’s centenary book.
Local historian Ray Carter places the club as among the oldest dozen bowls clubs still at their original sites in Victoria.
Things didn’t roll smoothly for the club from the start.
It was saddled with debt for its first 20 years, the opening of its two-rink green in 1883 was washed out and it became embroiled in a conflict with councillor and bowler John Hemmings over a nearby dam that was causing soakage of the green.
The dam named Hemmings’ Lake was eventually drained and filled in but the green has had to endure flooding from Dandenong Creek on several occasions.
Worse still, in 1977 its freshly-modernised and shifted clubhouse had to be rebuilt after being deliberately razed to the ground.
At times the club has thought about moving from its iconic digs.
In the 1940s, the club was straining for room to cater for its growing membership but has been variously refused permission to extend its site by the council or by two successive Ministers for Lands.
However its hunt for suitable relocation sites failed; the club rejecting suggestions of another site in Dandenong Park, Hemmings’ Park and Greaves Reserve over the next 30 years.
It wasn’t until 1950 that women members were accepted at the club.The club’s capacious honour boards declare a long list of men’s and ladies champions, most recently husband and wife Harry and Barbara Carlin.
Photos show even from early times a mass of towering trees surrounding the still-scenic site.
An early resident reminisced in the Journal in 1951 that the green was one of “two historic landmarks” in the town.
At the club’s ornamental centenary gates, under the shade of the Algerian oak, stand several plaques.
One states: “On this green where the game of bowls was fathered in Dandenong 100 years ago thousands of people have found new friendships and enjoyment…’.
In recent times, the council crowned the club as one of the municipality’s sporting legends.
