Established in partnership with a lawn tennis club in 1892, in Beach St, the club was set up to cater for retired or active businessmen for the purposes of recreational and social mixing. Wives were included only for local club and social occasions.
The men-only membership grew along with growth of the suburb over the club’s first 15 years, and the need to expand from a four-rink facility led to a move to a full-sized green in Albert St, where a group of women leased an area at the back of the green for croquet.
The club remained at the site until 1925, when the low-lying, flood-prone greens prompted the club to move to its present site in Ings Ave.
A new pavilion was opened in 1927 for the princely sum of £1250. The croquet club moved to grounds of its own further down Ings Ave, where it stayed until it was wound up in the 1960s. A women’s bowls section was established in 1929. Crawford (26 centre titles) remains the club’s top female player . She won a
singles title in 2015 at the disabled world championships, and a national pairs title in 2014, when, with Anne Muir, she defeated the Commonwealth Games pairing of Jo Edwards and Val Smith in the final. The Crawford-Muir pairing continued to their winning way against Edwards and Smith last year, knocking them out in the pairs semifinals
in New Plymouth, and lost narrowly Ashleigh Jeffcoat and Dale Raynor in the final. Crawford and Muir proved a force again at this year’s national championships, finishing third. Crawford has been strong in singles competition, also.
Debuting as a 19-year-old and going on to play representative golf for Otago 103 times and 24 times for New Zealand, McEwan followed his wife Shannon along to the St Clair Bowling Club in 2015, swapping his golf clubs for a set of bowls.
Now 36, and in just his third year as a bowls player, he is proving just as competitive on the bowling green as he was on the greens of various golf clubs around the world.
With a young family, the plan was to spend more time at home, but it hadn’t quite worked out like that, he said of becoming one of the region’s highly respected bowlers.
"I got the bug and away I went."
McEwan has joined an impressive list of millennial bowlers dominating a very competitive national scene and putting the sport of bowls in a very healthy state throughout the country.
McEwan had a golden run last year, reaching the qualifying finals of both the Scottish and International PBA opens, winning the centre triples title and club singles championship. He had an impact at the national championships in Dunedin over New Year, progressing through to the knockout stages in singles, pairs and fours. But it was his 21-13 singles victory over Scottish international Ryan Burnett that caught the attention of many.
"That was quite a buzz," he said of his victory over Burnett.
His run of form continues and earlier this week he finished second in the champion of champions singles. He is now preparing for the national under-8 (for bowlers with less than eight years in the game) singles championships in Auckland.
Among other notable members on the St Clair Bowling Club honours board is All Black Ray Bell, who from 1951 played nine times for the All Blacks, including three tests and scoring 29 points. Bell , who died in 2016, aged 90, was a former president of the club.
St Clair Bowling Club
Established: 1892.
Address: Ings Ave, St Clair.
Jubilee dinner: 7.30pm tonight, preceded by social hour at the clubrooms.
Oldest clubs Oldest clubs in Otago: Milton (1878), Balclutha (1880), Meadowbank (1881), Roslyn (1883), Taieri (1886), Kaitangata (1886), Oamaru Phoenix (1886), Green Island (1887), Port Chalmers (1892), St Clair (1892), Clinton (1897), Palmerston (1898) and Outram (1900).
First club in New Zealand: Auckland Bowling club, opened in 1861. It was followed in 1872 by the Dunedin club, which was based in the Dunedin Hospital grounds and closed in 1972. The Milton club is the oldest country club in New Zealand.
First interclub match in New Zealand: Held in 1876 between Dunedin clubs Fernhill and Dunedin.
Oldest in world: The world’s oldest surviving bowling green is at the Southhampton Old Bowling Club in England. It was first used in 1299.
