HOW DID THE BIG BOWLS CHALLENGE COME ABOUT? A WORD FROM THE FOUNDER - CLAY PARKER

Wallsend Bowling Club conducted a "Sportsman's Day" and the presenters were Trevor Gillmeister, Artie Beatson and John Peard. After a few jokes, a few beers,... a memorabilia auction and a few more beers John Gilmour (Newcastle Herald Journalist), Greg Luck (CEO Wallsend BC) Dave Williams (State Manager for Tooheys) and Clay Parker (Bowls Manager) sat together after the show and had a few more beers and told a couple of yarns. Greg luck asked Dave Williams would he be interested in sponsoring a big bowls tournament. Dave said he would if it was something unique unlike any other lawn bowls competitions that have been run before. Dave was trying to get beer drinkers to switch to "XXXX Gold" beer at the time and said he would back a bowls tournament that would promote his product. Well I got to work and quickly wrote up some rules. My son had played in a 7 aside event with Singles, Pairs and Fours in a sets play format and I had just played in the Australian Indoor Singles Final at Tweed Heads which was also sets play so I used those rules as guidelines but with a few variations.

The spectators could watch 3 games at once of 4 bowl Singles, 3 bowl Pairs and 2 bowl Triples. After another afternoon where a few drinks were involved my CEO Greg Luck who used to coach the Newcastle Falcons basketball team suggested that we should use the best bowlers in Australia as Marquee players in the Singles just like he used to bring guys out from USA to play in the Aussie Basketball League. He said if that doesn't attract people to our clubs nothing will.

That's how the marquee player came about. That afternoon we were watching the cricket on TV while the power play was in action and someone suggested that we should incorporate the "Power Play" into our new sets play tournament. Then the next question was "how will someone know when the power play is on if they go to the toilet or bar and come back to their seat" That's when I suggested we could use yellow arm bands or hats and change to yellow jacks.
Well after we put all the ideas together we presented the "XXXX GOLD BIG BOWL CHALLENGE" to Dave Williams and he loved it so we now had Tooheys as our new sponsor. My CEO told me to write down a list of clubs that I thought would be interested in joining this new Tournament with an entry fee of $5,000.

My reaction was " Absolutely none! Are you crazy ?" Greg insisted that we visit my suggested clubs and do a power point presentation. To my amazement we went to 15 clubs and 14 of them were a big "yes". Soldiers Point declined the offer and Raymond Terrace said "yes" but then pulled out and went with the Premier League who we were competing against at the time. That left 13 teams for the inaugural year which created a bye. The original 13 teams were Wallsend, Nelson Bay, East Cessnock, East Maitland, Alder Park, Charlestown, Ettalong Memorial, Valentine, Halekalani, Beresfield, Kahibah, Charlestown and Redhead.

Approximately half the entry fee was used to advertise our newly formed event. Prime TV were another sponsor and match us dollar for dollar with "adds" on TV regularly during the season and 2HD had commercial spots for us as well with a 3 way talks on Saturday mornings involving Steve Glasson, myself and Mike Rabbit on the "Sat Morning Lawn Bowls Show" with Denis Broad (NDBA Secretary)
With all the paid advertising during the competition a big crowd turned up for the very first game at Kahibah (home) Vs Alder Park and at the end of the competition Kahibah were again involved in the Grand Final at Wallsend but finished bridesmaid to Halekulani who were the first ever winners.