Tillicoultry Bowling Club

incorporating Devonvale Bowling Club

established 1852

From the Archives

27th March 1947

A motion to allow Ladies to play on the green for one afternoon per week was rejected 27 votes to 17

22nd March 1948

Mr A Hodge again put forward the proposal that the ladies be allowed on the green one day per week. Mr R McGee thought this would cause the green to be destroyed!

The Ladies Section

Ladies Roll of Honour : Ladies Section History : Ladies Section Archives

In 2007 the only Ladies competition played was The Triples. This was won by G Soloman, M Leel and M Lawson

Ladies Presidents & Champions

back to top

Ladies Roll of Honour

Scottish Singles District Champions - 1973 Mrs I Donald 1991 Mrs M Penman

County Singles Champion of Champions - 1993 Mrs N Crawford

County Charity Pairs Champions - 1992 M Fullerton and I McKnight

County 2 Bowl Champions - 1993 Z Dawson and N Turner 1999 N Little and N Crawford 2004 N Crawford and M Penman

County Triples Champions - 1998 B Cross, B Cameron and J Gallacher 2004 R Aitken, M McFarlane and Z Dawson

Scottish 2 Bowl Pairs District Champions - 1991 M Fullerton and J Gallacher

County Fours Champions - 1978 M Thomson, E Cross, M Fullerton and M Hardie 1982 M Fullerton, Z Dawson, D Love and N Crawford 1983 B Hall, M Bernard, M Buist and L Aitken 2001 - B Cook, N Turner, J Ward and R Aitken 2004 - B Cook, R Ballantyne, A Peebles and N Turner

Senior Fours County Champion - 1993 L Duncan, Z Dawson, N Turner and J Ward 1998 - M Holt, R Ballantyne, N Crawford and N Turner

back to top

Ladies Section History

The ladies or at least the wives of club members were always prominent behind the scenes in the club - where their help in the kitchen was always much sought after and much appreciated. The ladies however had very little rights in the club or on the green itself. The one concession they received was to play bowls on a Wednesday afternoon - for member's wives only. For the first 110 years or so of its existence TBC was very much the bastion of male domination.

This continued until the late 1960's when a request came from the ladies led by Mrs Donald - wife of prominent member Bob Donald and daughter in law of George Donald one of the club's anti-feminist hardliners - that the ladies would like to be able to participate in County and Scottish Tournaments as well as matches with other clubs and organisations which they were unable to do at present as they had no official status. Hence the request to inaugurate an official ladies section.

After much discussion a motion, proposed by W Bunyan seconded by H Robertson that the ladies should be allowed to form an official club albeit for member's wives only was passed by the club members in 1968 and the Tillicoultry Ladies Club was born.

In 1972 with the amalgamation of the Devonvale Club being imminent, and with the permission of the men's section the Tillicoultry ladies met on the 20th March to draw up new rules and guidelines for the ladies section in preparation for inviting the Devonvale ladies to join them. The main points of these rules enabled the club to recruit 50 members -not necessarily member's wives, daytime Wednesday was to be given over to the ladies, plus ladies could play any afternoon and 2 rinks were to be made available to the ladies section any evening of the week. Saturday night was to be a mixed rink night.

From that time on Tillicoultry ladies began to make their mark in the County and Scottish Bowling circles and to date many championships have been won. They have also played their part in the County and Scottish administration, supporting both organisations on and off the green.

 

back to top