Bowlers from across Ireland compete in first ever visually impaired test matches as coach Ian McClure aspires for spot in Commonwealth Games

A squad of 10 players travelled to Solihull to tackle England in pairs matches last Friday and Saturday and despite the results 3-2 and 4-1 reversals over the two days, the Irish bowlers acquitted themselves well and showed they can compete on the international stage.

Disability bowls coach Ian McClure a double Commonwealth Games gold medallist hopes the trip to the West Midlands was the first step in getting visionally impaired bowlers to major tournaments.

“It’s a great opportunity, it really all started with the fact that Northern Ireland is the only country from the UK that actually doesn't have representation at Commonwealth Games level,” explained McClure.

“So, obviously there was a need to identify, we have a plan in place as part of our Irish Bowls Federation strategy to try and upgrade grassroots disability bowls and also link that into high performance.

“We have a number of test matches scheduled this year, the first one, the inaugural one, was against England last Friday and Saturday in Solihull.

“We took a team of 10 cross it's an all-Ireland team, and it was a mixture of new participants to bowls also a few experienced hands as well.

“So, we have in place two disability hubs now, one in the Grove in Belfast, which is supported by Belfast City Council and we’re very grateful for their support.

“The other one is the Causeway Hub based out of Portrush, Bowling Club and Ballybrakes indoor community bowling club in Ballymoney and basically they have been up and running for probably a number of years now.

“This year in particular, we've done a number of open taster sessions to get more people involved, both para which is obviously the main mainstream of disabled bowling and visually impaired that's the two spheres.

“It's under the disability bowls umbrella, so with those up and running then we did a couple of assessment evening as well and we selected the teams accordingly and obviously we have that link between grassroots and then feeding high performance under our high-performance coach Neil Booth.

McClure stated that hard work has already started to get a team ready to be involved on a global stage.

“So, our objective is over the next couple of years is to get a team ready for hopefully the next Commonwealth Games and World Championships,” he added.

“That will be our aspiration and it will be one team, it would be able bowlers and disabled bowlers together in one team going forward, but obviously there's a lot of work there to be done.

“We have both men and women, and again, it's a mix of disabilities, so we have para bowlers there, so some of the guys usually have bowling wheelchair.

“Some of them bowl just from a normal delivery and then we have our visually impaired bowlers, for example Lisa Royale is a B1 classification, so that basically means that that Lisa has no sight at all.

“There’s different levels of sight loss, so you have from B1 to B9, B1 to B4 is sight loss and then B5 to B9 and is your para bowls so there is a lot more to it.

“We have participants from down south, men and women and here in the north, we have a vast difference in ages.

“For example, we have Shane, who’s from down south he’s in his mid-20s, then we would have Lisa who is over 60.”

McClure stated that it’s easy for anyone to get involved.

“Just look at the IBF for information,” he pointed out.

“It's not about doing well at the sport in particular, you find your level, you can be as competitive at bowls as you want to be, but there's a really strong social aspect, you can have a cup of tea, you can play your bowls, enjoy it. for the craic, have a bit of a yarn.”