We’re not too old to play sports: the career of women lawn bowlers

Contributing to the growing body of literature about older women’s participation in sports, this ethnographic study of lawn bowlers in Perth, Western Australia, revealed a five‐stage career path characterizing club members’ involvement in this leisure activity. After first being introduced to bowls through other people and/or changing life circumstances, getting hooked on bowls represented the second stage in which women found themselves irresistibly drawn to this sport for multiple reasons. Playing bowls followed next as members fluidly moved between being social players, serious players and temporarily retired players variously engaged in different levels of competition. Some, but not all, then chose to assume organizational positions as committee members, officers, delegates, umpires and coaches. Inevitably, women, in the last stage, faced physical but not necessarily social retirement from bowls. In the end, bowls became the vehicle through which this particular group of women built community.