Industrial Pirates League, Chichester

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Industrial Pirates League
History

We don't know when the Industrial Pirates league was formed but we think it started life during the seventies, 1970's that is, at the old AMF Portsmouth alley, it grew to be a very popular league with twenty four teams taking part at one stage, but as the fortunes of the bowling alley dwindled so did the league's at one stage the league was down to just eight teams.

With rumours of the Portsmouth bowl likely closure the league was moved to the Bowlplex centre at Havant to ensure its continuation, the Portsmouth bowl shut two years later but the league was safe, after a slow start at Havant the league started to build up from those eight teams to achieve for one season sixteen teams, but since then the numbers have hovered around twelve teams.

At one point it looked like the 2010/11 season was going to start with just seven teams but by the start of the season the league had eleven teams, also with the steady stream of teams the average of the league has risen as better bowlers have been attracted to it.

History repeated itself in 2013 with rumours of AMF Havant closing down and unable to get assurances from management the league moved to the Go Bowling centre at Fareham which again proved to be the correct decision as the Havant centre closed just eight months later.

Believe it or not two years down the line Go Bowling Fareham was to shut, which was completely out of the blue, we left it too late to get into the Superbowl at Gunwharf Portsmouth, looked at AMF Eastleigh but they didn't want to know, so we tried MFA Bowl Chichester not expecting much because they weren't renowned for league bowling, but they welcomed us with open arms.

To say Chichester isn't really an league centre is an understatement and it's been a long hard road to get things set up for a league and it will be an ongoing situation especially with centres now not that interested in bowling as a sport, but we have survived just, although our numbers have dwindled to perhaps the bear minimum and to make matters worse the public at Chichester doesn't seem to have much interest in league bowling so hopefully we can keep the league going.

The league will have to change from a trio's format to a doubles format for the 2016/17 season just to ensure the league survives as it seems very unlikely that the league will continue as a trio's league because there will not be enough teams to sustain that format, so hopefully we can continue moving forwards as a doubles league.