I was once told that through sport, I lived a double life.

I disagreed. My view was that what I did was no different to how others involved in amateur sport lived their lives. I had a decent job, a part-time hobby and a dedication to the sport I played.

But then if I introduced myself to anyone new. Told them what I did. How I made my living; where I would be on a Friday night – what I would then be doing on a Saturday morning – a lack of understanding would permeate through the rest of our conversation. They simply refused to believe me.

The job meant working at different European sites. The hobby was as an events reviewer for DJ Magazine. The sport – Lawn Bowls. See, the first two aspects were fine – it was when I tried to present the case for the third – the most important aspect of the three that all belief exited the conversation – and doubt; near mocking was all we had left. It was as though the two components of my life simply could not exist together.

There are a host of truths that bowlers often claim as myth, which I have always been more than happy to cover in those introductions. The primary truth thrown at us is that the game is played only by old people – who only have bowls and Werther’s Originals to occupy their days. The next claim is that the game is boring to watch. That nothing happens and that it can’t really be a sport if all you are doing is rolling a ball along the ground. The final view is that it looks old fashioned – that no sport should ever expect you to wear grey trousers or a tie.

The problem those of us actively involved in the game have is that we can try our hardest to dismiss those points as misguided – yet deep down we accept that there is more than a hint of truth to them.

More people over 50 will play the game than those under 50. I played in a team of 16 last night, with only one bowler younger than me – with the majority of the remaining 14 close on 25 years older than me. They may well be past their “sell by date” in terms of career development or other sports, but it doesn’t mean that they no longer have that sporting fire in their bellies – no longer enjoy a competitive environment; boiled sweets optional.

The game is often boring to watch. It’s not an action sport (though is rolling different to throwing?). Things only tend to get really exciting when the noise levels rise, or when a player has run out of ideas, and all that is left for them to do is send a bowl up as fast as they can in the desperate hope that something might happen. It is therefore left to the players to make the game exciting. They will run down the green after bowls – shout their team mate’s efforts closer to the jack – often high fiving, just like cricketers do, when the end result goes in their favour.

The hardest one to counter is always going to be the old-fashioned look of the game. I am honoured to have been selected to play for Yorkshire this coming Saturday. Yet there’s no getting away from the fact that with my selection, comes instructions on how I must present myself – blazer, white shirt, county tie and grey trousers upon arrival. Then white county shirt, white trousers and white shoes during the game – from school boy to cabin boy in one quick change around.

Now like many I work in an environment where a dress code is more of an informal agreement. I wear a shirt and trousers with the coloured shoe of choice. I don’t have to wear a suit jacket. I don’t have to wear a tie. It’s not that they are optional, just not expected. When we try to sell the game to friends who have a similar working dress code, and a steadfast dislike of formal attire born from school uniforms, it’s near impossible to get beyond this point.

But get beyond it we must – for bowls is in trouble and we need your help.

Some of you may have seen the sporting news feature on bowls on BBC Breakfast last weekend with Natalie Melmore (pictured above), a 21 year old, female Commonwealth Games gold medal holder encouraging youngsters to take up the game.

I can’t remember what reason I give for taking up the game these days: That my dad joined a club at the end of his garden (which is true). That my knee went at 16 and four operations later, it is the only sport I can play (I carried on playing cricket till I was in my late 20s so not strictly true). That I had access to a sly pint away from home under 18, and access to cheap booze at my home club past 18 (true, but I now play for a club with no bar).

Whatever the real reason, one thing is for sure is that once I did take bowls up, at no point did I think this game is not for me. More so, there were times when it completely dominated my life. I would be sat in meetings in Paris, clock watching until I could get a plane back to play in a game of fours. Or sat in an after party in Bristol at six in the morning, politely having to hurry through an interview with a couple of really engaging DJs for fear I’d miss the train back to London to play in a club game.

And I’m not alone in that respect. As with any sport, if you have pretence of actually being any good at bowls – you have to accept that it will, for a short period each year, completely take over your life. With so many competitions – all thoughts of a social life, family life; normal life – are often put on hold. When I first met Amy I would regularly enter every competition going. Since moving up north, getting married and Lauren’s arrival – I have grown to appreciate that I can’t bowl half as much as I used to, though I do stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable with comments like: “well, if we lose tonight we won’t have to play this competition again” – knowing full well that I am going to go out there and do everything I can to win.

Like the image presented by the BBC, I believe that bowls is a sport for all. If the third round of the FA Cup gives the media the opportunity to roll out the hackneyed “everyday man” feature, then bowls has its FA Cup style team stories with every game we play. I may have stuck out like a sore thumb working as a nightclub reviewer, but there are postmen, bankers, MPs, IT experts, civil servants and company directors in our midst. Admittedly a number of clubs have their history ingrained in a blue collar, political or military backgrounds, but there’s every chance you will be sharing a car to a game with a captain of industry as you will a student. The game will accommodate you, in many forms, no matter what sector of society you come from.

The other beauty of the game is that it is accessible for those with a differing range of sporting backgrounds. I’ve played with those at the start of their sporting careers, those coming towards the end – or those who shied away from any kind of physical activity at school. It’s true that a lack of competitiveness will only get you so far but there is always a place for that type of grounded personality within our clubs.

If however, like me you are at the other end of the spectrum – where you have to sit in your car for 10 minutes, alone, with only your dark thoughts – trying to compose yourself after another loss; another competition exit – then failing miserably to appear upbeat when you walk through the door – then come on in.

For if there is one image of bowls that is false – it is the quiet, sedate, near death state that non-bowlers have grown to accept. On Saturday when playing for Yorkshire I will undoubtedly run up the green after a bowl. I will spend most of the game bellowing my thoughts out across the greens for the other 95 bowlers to hear. I will laugh, I will engage in kidology, and with the opponents I know – will spend a fair bit of time in winding each other up. For I know full well that when I play a bad bowl, shout for a team mates bowl to do more – look up to the heavens and ask where it has all gone wrong – there will be someone at the other end of the green ready with a few choice words to cut me down in my tracks.

I no longer live a double life.

I’m of an age (36) – of the fitness levels that a new acquaintance will accept that I play bowls. They will acknowledge that as a father, office worker and now bowls correspondent for the Yorkshire Evening Post – I will need a “hobby” to get me out of the house.

Yet there is a new generation, a younger generation – like Natalie Melmore – that need our support, need us older heads to encourage our friends to come along and try the game. For if every bowler introduced one of their friends to the game, we’d not be in a mess – we won’t be worried about falling participant levels, declining competition standards or clubs closing. We’d be healthy, prosperous and who knows – we might even be taken seriously as a sport.

My challenge today was to write a piece that would be read by those who have no interest in reading about bowls.

My challenge now is to try and convert one of those readers in to a participant – one of my mates in to becoming as passionate about the game as I am.

If you would like to find out more about the game, please do get in touch – or follow the links below to the Bowls England and BBC websites:

Home of Bowls England

BBC feature with Natalie Melmore

Bowls Australia – truly leading the way in convincing the world that bowls is a sport

My column in the Yorkshire Evening Post

I’m stood, hugging a bare-chested man.

I’ve been in this embrace for the last five minutes. I don’t know his name, or why he is hugging me. All I know is that his shirt is round his waist, I’m covered in his sweat and his mouth is moving but no sound is coming out.

He reaches his hands round to the back of my head, and with delicate fingers, starts to massage my neck. I don’t remember this being advertised as a service when I paid to get in here?

Still his lips move – his eyes darting around as they do. He points to someone in the distance, someone I can barely make out through the mass of bodies. Bodies interlocked with each other; and smoke, lots of smoke. The room is full of smoke.

Then, like ears popping as a plane comes in to land, a moment of clarity sweeps through my head.

“I said I was X from the message board” he shouts.

Then the roar returns. And he is gone, lost in the sound; possibly lost forever.

There is nothing seedy about this picture. This is a nightclub, and I love every minute of it.

Dance music and nightclubs changed my life. I met Amy not in a club, but through mutual friends I went clubbing with. Without clubbing and Amy, there would clearly be no Lauren.

This site wouldn’t exist were it not for Ben Edwards, who in his role as an editor at DJ Mag, gave me the opportunity to turn my thoughts in to print – through compiling reviews, interviews and features – all based on dance music and nightclubs.

Most of my good friends, the ones I chose rather than was forced together with through school or work – are those I share a mutual love of music and going out with. There are even those “friends” as mentioned on another post that I will never meet, but can talk free and easy with on a host of subjects, usually on sites dedicated to dance music.

It has given me more shared memories than anything else, possibly with the exception of my immediate family. Which is kind of ironic, as any detractors of the sound, the environment and the associated activities would suggest that the whole package does nothing but destroy brain cells. Yet ask any regular clubber, who has been going for twenty years or so what their favourite night out was, or where they were when they first heard a certain tune, and they will recount a host of “lost” nights far better than someone who spent last Saturday down the pub and can’t remember how they got home.

Those same detractors argue that it is all the same – beats, sounds, and venues. It is all the same, but so vastly different. The music may have an underlying rhythm pattern linked to the beats and musical bars, but the melody is different, there are key changes, vocals; there are even different dancing styles.

The venues can be as diverse as a reclaimed railway arch, a sports stadium and a beach bar – not to mention the varying shapes and sizes of the more traditional, dedicated club venues. Each will hold a different memory, for differing reasons – even if the DJ, the music and the friends are all the same.

And that’s what makes it so special. You may have an expectation of how a night will pan out – what you will hear, who you will see, what you will chat about – but then something will happen that pushes the night in a totally different direction. There will be new introductions, “aint’ see you in time” hugs, casual acquaintances and long time friendships formed. Organic is a term overly used in dance music circles, but it is hard to find a better one to describe the way a night grows and morphs. The way the punters on the dance floor link together, bouncing along to the tunes – it’s move or get moved at times.

Even the invasion of your personal space is something you grow to accept, if not always love. The random stranger, lost in a crowd – detached from their friends, who under the influence chooses to befriend you. Those are the casual acquaintances. By that time of night, neither of you are going to remember much of the conversation, but it was pleasant enough while it lasted.

Since Lauren was born, I haven’t set foot in a club. It was a concious decision – it took awhile to feel comfortable with her staying away from us, and at the same time – hangovers and babies do not mix which rules out much of the following day as well – especially if you are only leaving the club at six in the morning. But the older Lauren gets, the more I feel I have some unfinished business with that side of my life. I miss the vibe, the camaraderie, the lost conversations and the good times linked to the music and venues. You get the tunes on the podcasts, but that is only a fraction of the experience; a mere part of why I love it all.

There’s talk of a get together, a commemoration to a decade passed since a group of us met in Ibiza*. A lot of modern dance music leaves me flat, and the nights out, to the wrong venues can leave you feeling jaded – but a retrospective event, a chance to recount, a chance to remember, a chance to dance, chat, laugh and invade each other’s personal space is just the sort of night I need. A night we all need.

A big thank you to all the DJs, the producers, the club owners, promoters, the record shop owners, the space invaders, the bar staff, the randoms who chat to you at the bar, the casual acquaintances on the dance floor, the message board users – but most importantly the friends. Without you, it would have meant nothing.

Dance music and clubbing changed my life. Did it do the same for you? If so, get in touch – share your experiences, share your first nights out, your first tunes – your last dance with us all.

Keep the memories alive.

First club night – Gin Palace, Acton, London
Favourite club night – Optimo, Subclub, Glasgow
Favourite venue – The old terrace, Space, Ibiza
Favourite tune – Inner City – Pennies from Heaven (Kev’s Tunnel Mix)
Last night out – Polaroid, The Wire Club, Leeds (early 2009)

(*A number of us met on the weekend of 1/2 September 2001. It was the weekend England beat Germany 5-1, and it was also the Sasha birthday bash when he dropped the hideous “Cowpander” at Space – not all memories are positive ones HA!)

Image taken by Ben Raid at Junktion, The Tatty Bogle Club, London, July 2003

Found myself in a strange town, though I’ve only been here for six years now.

I’ve got questions in my mind. Trying to find a clue on Cookridge Street.

I moved to Leeds for love. It’s true. The love was already in me; it just happened that the person I loved was living in Leeds. I was living in London. The long distance relationship was a pain. At the time I had agreed to walk away from a role – and was well rewarded for doing so. With the severance package in pocket I took a punt and moved up to Leeds. We had a house; I found a temporary job and started to find the amenities – the pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants and shops that I would soon start to build a regular, happy relationship with. That was six years ago. My relationship with the city has not moved on from that point.

When I moved up, I was still in the phase of my life where running around on a weekend, getting up to no good – drinking myself through the early Sunday morning shows on VH1 seemed par for the course. I was still clubbing. Actually, I was still working for DJ Magazine; going to clubs all over the country – sometimes out of country. My social life revolved around pubs and bars that were used as pre-club venues, club venues, and somewhere to gather my thoughts after a hectic night out. It was very much as it was when I lived in London and Glasgow – same actions, different locations.

I knew at that point that I wanted more. I was reviewing club nights with DJs and promoters that were a fair bit younger than me – I was aging with every new review. Problem I had was that culturally I was a black hole. In London I had tried ballet, opera, theatre – some moments resonated, others had me looking at my watch. I expected more of myself – yet didn’t want to become something I was not.

I knew Leeds had much to offer. Beyond Technique, Asylum and Back to Basics where I spent most of my Saturday nights – the city offered a Grand Theatre, the West Yorkshire Playhouse and small venues like The Cockpit or the Universities for Gigs. There was the Art Gallery, The Henry Moore Institute and the Royal Armouries. To my shame – bar for a Rat Pack matinee at the Grand Theatre, a chance to avoid the rain in the art gallery or a couple of revival gigs at the Cockpit – I’m yet to cross the threshold of the city’s main attractions. I say shame – only for I believe that’s what the reader expects me to feel. For the reality is that I haven’t been to The West Yorkshire Playhouse or the Royal Armouries because the mood has never taken me there. The only barrier was desire.

It also isn’t the reason why I still feel lost in the city. Would going to see Billy Liar, the latest production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse make me feel more at home, or more aware of Leeds’ identity? Would going to the Royal Armouries enable me to tap in to the community spirit? Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner that I feel standoffish where community is involved. See, us Londoners need the threat of a two ton bomb falling on our head before we are prepared to leave our front doors open, or to break out in to song. Until then, we’ll pass you buy with heads bowed low for fear our eyes ever make contact.

But something is now stirring. Twitter is to blame. My cultural void needs filling. My drive to engage more with the people around me is increasing – strange how a global phenomenon makes you look inwards, at yourself and those closer to you. Through the use of hash tags – healthy debates about Leeds tend to grow, sucking in more and more viewpoints – some you relate to, others that pass you buy. The latest asks what people love about Leeds. I said nothing. As in, I love nothing about Leeds. Don’t get me wrong, it is a perfectly fine place to live – for Amy and me to bring up Lauren – for my mum to now live. For us to call home. But what is there to love about Leeds?

A lot of the answers people gave, and a lot of conversations I’ve had in my time in the city, always suggest that the best things in Leeds – are not necessarily native to Leeds.

If you live in the city, picture your perfect day. Mine would start with Italian coffee and a French croissant in La Bottega Milanese on The Calls. I might then head up to Hip in Thorntons Arcade – to pick up some American t-shirts and German trainers. I would spend the afternoon in North Bar on New Briggate drinking ale from Sheffield, Germany, America or Belgium. Sport or music would have to focus somewhere – maybe the national cricket team (often without any Yorkshire players) at Headingley or a band visiting Leeds on tour at the Academy. For food, and to show I don’t just run on coffee, pastry and booze – a well cooked Italian meal at somewhere like Diva Italian in Pudsey. We’d finish the night off at a friend’s house, drinking Mediterranean red wine or more ale picked up from Beer Ritz, whilst listening to American or European dance music.

So my perfect day in Leeds can only occur, if the people of the city are prepared to bring to me – the very best things I want from elsewhere in the world? If they stopped doing this – would it be time to move on? The reality to that question is no – but the basis of the perfect day does suggest that I use Leeds mainly as a place to live, to work and to source out new and interesting things, from parts of the world my budget will not take me to.

So how can I change this? How can I become more community focused – to live the life of a Loiner (a native of Leeds) who is genuinely interested in improving their lot – by improving their social, environmental and economic surroundings? Not simply interested in picking up a pay packet, most of which goes straight out of the city – but to get involved in community driven arts projects, localised debates and area regeneration? I am lucky in that I live in a nice, leafy part of the city. I am of an age where I do not object to a higher end supermarket or bar moving in – but what if that changes? What if I lose my job due to budgetary cuts? What if there is another lengthy bin strike and my drive way is festooned with used nappies? What if I simply want more out of life?

The answer to the original question is simple. What I love about Leeds are the people who are prepared to make a difference to my life. The next question that follows on from that – is how do I become a person that can make a difference to a stranger’s life? I don’t have the answer to that – but thanks to Twitter – I think I might know a couple of people who do.

The opening two lines are adapted from The Jam – Strange Town

The image is of The Parkinson Building, University of Leeds – a tower that dominates both the skyline, and my working life.

There are certain points in time that we are all supposed to remember exactly where we were, when something profound or ground breaking took place.

My Mum claims to remember exactly where she was when JFK was assassinated. Others can recall where they were when man first set foot on the moon, or when Phil Collins played two gigs in one day for Live Aid.

But then, that really is nothing compared to what I am about to share with you. For I can quite clearly remember where I was the day I first paid £2 for a pint. It was the same day that I realised England were rubbish at football – The date was the 17th June 1992. The place was The George Pub in Hammersmith, London.

American presidents come and go. Phil Collins is now more synonymous with gorillas, but that night marked a trend that still lives with us today. England continue to fail at major championships and the price of premium lager continues to rise – everywhere outside of the People’s Republic of Wetherspoon.

I started drinking, fairly regularly, by the age of 15. People often view the life of a child from a broken family as a difficult one. Not true. For the one great advantage in the days pre-mobile phone, was that you could simply tell both parents you were staying with the other – and then go out all night or stay with your mates; no questions asked.

My drinking tended to revolve around two events in those formative years – gigs and bowls matches. The former seems pretty straight forward. I was in to music, loved the appeal of live events and even at 15 – would often pass for an 18 year old. As for bowls matches – well that’s simple. I played the game as there was a club on the Old Man’s road. I’d quite often get picked to play in away games, far from the prying eyes of my mum. There was always a friendly bowler who would be happy to buy a pint and leave me drinking in the corner of the bar – WOAH!!! We’re not suggesting there was any grooming going on here. Just a positive, working class attitude to a rite of passage associated with growing up. I also learnt a very valuable lesson in that asking for a lager & lime would often betray your age. Asking for a pint of Mild or Light’n’Bitter put four years on you; squeaky voice or no squeaky voice.

There was a dramatic introduction to bottled lager in my 16th year. A family friend organised a 1990 World Cup BBQ – with the exotic looking and sounding Becks as the drink du soir. An early lesson learnt was that, just because it was the same size as a bottle of coke, didn’t mean you should drink it as fast. Can I remember my first hangover? Such things you try to block from your mind, but I’m pretty sure a small, sleek German might have been involved.

The gigs produced more than their fair share of booze fuelled, fun nights out. Not for us the buying of four cans of Hoffmeister (although, yes, this was drunk from time to time). No. We were far classier than that – buying a bottle of Ernest & Julio Gallo. Poking the cork through with a house key, and sitting in the park – rehearsing the vocals to the band we were about to see. Inside was a different matter entirely. In those days choice was limited to Heineken and Carlsberg – and although our taste buds knew no different, there was no better drink to swill whilst readying ourselves for another botched attempt at a stage dive.

My first experience of spirits, came, as with most clueless teenagers, in the form of a sickly sweet American whisky or Caribbean white rum. It really was more about which mixer we could stand to drink for a prolonged period of time – be it Bacardi & Coke or Southern Comfort & Lemonade. We looked cool with our small tumblers, whilst the rest of the kids were being turned away from the bar. I believe a night on Cider and Bacardi chasers produced the first bout of drink induced sickness – made worse by the fact both were drunk straight from the bottle; down by the Thames at Richmond. Classy.

The move from school years to sixth form college changed very little in what was consumed, more just an increase in quantity. With no school uniform to hinder my desire to drink during the day, we had ample opportunity to visit the local dive pubs around college, where only the old or the out of work would frequent – basically any pub run by a landlord that would turn a blind eye as long as we paid and behaved ourselves.

Where there was a slight change, came in the form of venues for intoxication. A year older, but not necessarily wiser, I was able to chance my arm by moving away from the local discotheque/meat market – moving in towards the bright lights of the big city. Night clubs with their cavernous spaces, Global DJs and strange drinks like Blue Bols that glimmered under the strobe lighting. Then there was cans of Red Stripe at rave nights. So thick in the mouth, it would quickly throw you a jellyhead that made ‘busting the runningman’ all the more humorous – I guess you had to be there.

We were no longer park dwellers. Now we had a venue to spend the night under cover, surrounded by older women, whilst drinking to a soundtrack of beats, pianos and dark female vocals. As I stood in the middle of the Ministry of Sound dancefloor, arms in crucifix pose, bottle in either hand – I really thought life couldn’t get any better. The thumping headache and nausea that greeted the following Monday, confirmed that it definitely could get worse.

Still to come in Part Two – University, drinking games, drinking abroad and my first £5 beer.