Our Greens – Wauchope Bowling Club
Over much of its history, the Wauchope Bowling Club has held a reputation for providing good, well presented greens.
The first green installed by Mick Zaia is that now known as the Weller Maiden green. Although play had been underway for some time, it was officially opened on Saturday 20 August 1949 by then President of the NSW Bowling Association Mr L S Roseby. It was originally laid with bent grass and cared for on a voluntary basis by Len Phillips. The greenkeepers that followed included Albert Gam, Ray Elrington, Pat Trotter, R E “Pedro” Gill, Mike Gould, Barry Freeman, Rod Hollis & Gary Foster.
The second green, now known as the A D “Fly” Marchment green, was established and opened in June 1953. Albert Gam was responsible for overseeing the work on this green.
Official naming of the A D “Fly” Marchment green
Both greens have undergone substantial changes to their playing surfaces over the years including the use of Milperra couch, Tifdwarf couch, (Wauchope was the first club in the area to use Tifdwarf), and Riley’s Super Sport grass. Both greens are currently laid with Tifdwarf and both have had flood lights for many years.
Of the greens staff over the years, Barry Freeman and Gary Foster have enjoyed champion status as bowlers with both representing the Club at District and Zone. With Ellis Cowdery, Barry Freeman currently shares the title of the Club’s most successful Singles Champion, with both having won a record six major singles titles.
 |
|
Barry Freeman in action Gary Foster ready for a big night out
When it came to naming our greens the club chose particularly well in Jarvis Weller Maiden and Arthur D “Fly” Marchment. Both proved themselves to be very capable administrators who gave many years service to the Country Club, Bowling Club and regional bowling associations. Both were granted Life Membership of the Bowling Club. By naming our greens as they did, the Club did more than honour their memories, they etched the names Weller Maiden and Fly Marchment onto the list of sporting icons in the community of Wauchope.
WELLER MAIDEN
Weller preferred to be addressed by his middle name. He was a character and a good sportsman. According to his family he played tennis, represented Queensland at cricket as a left hand spin bowler but above all else, he excelled as an extremely keen and capable, fixed stance lawn bowler. He liked a beer, usually only drank from a five ounce glass and was known on occasions to deliberately put down a wrong bias when playing social bowls so he could immediately call all the players on his rink into the bar where he would shout a round of drinks. He won a number of club championships which are recorded on our honour boards He was a foundation member of the Lake Cathie Bowling Club and is credited with having built the first green at North Haven Bowling Club. At one time he also served as head of the local umpires panel.
During World War 2 Weller was a member of the Volunteer Defence Corps and on occasions, the Army would use part of Weller’s dairy farm at Taree for mortar training. After leasing his farm, Weller moved to Port Macquarie and then onto Wauchope after buying the Crystal Café which was located opposite the Hasting Hotel. Some three years later and in partnership with Jack Collins, Weller bought land at Redbank and established a market garden.
FLY MARCHMENT
Stories abound about how Fly got his nickname including that it was bestowed on him at a young age by his elders who considered him a bit of a nuisance and also that he was called Fly because he proved to be a very fast runner during his football career with his beloved Wauchope Blues.
Fly was compelled to remain at home during World War 2 as he was deemed to provide an essential service to the community of Wauchope. What followed was a lifetime in the family bakery business. Family history includes a story about a local security guard who used to call in late at night to the bakehouse and accept a pie. Fly was happy about it until the guard assumed it was his right just to take a pie. One night Fly cleared all the pies and baked one with a certain brand of dogfood instead of meat. The guard never mentioned if it tasted different but he did later remark that the young hoons around town had stopped honking their car horns at him and instead were hanging their heads out of their car windows and were barking at him!
During the war years Fly almost single-handedly kept the local cricket and rugby league teams going and he gained a reputation of being a capable administrator as well as being able to organise teams and recognise talent. When lawn bowls was introduced to Wauchope, Fly became an enthusiastic participant, both on and off the green. He was known to be particularly proud to be a skip in the team which won the Club’s second District Pennant in 1980, and he gained legendary status from his service in the club kitchen where was widely known for more than just his pies.