Short Story: To The Bowling Green
The game of bowls has been a feature of the English landscape for an inconveniently long time, with the green at Southampton having been flattened by players since 1299. For centuries, its primary sin was being more interesting than archery practice, which prompted a series of monarchs, apparently convinced the kingdom's security depended on its citizens being lethally bored, to repeatedly ban it. The national obsession is best captured in the tale of Sir Francis Drake, who was said to have calmly finished his game before dealing with the minor inconvenience of the Spanish Armada—a story so perfectly English, it's a shame it was likely invented years later. This pleasant state of village-by-village rules couldn't last, and in the 19th century, the Scots took it upon themselves to codify the game. The English followed suit, forming the Bowling Association in 1903, thus completing the sport's long journey from a threat to national security into a thoroughly regulated and respectable pastime.
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