A BOWLS club faces extinction after 85 years because its council landlord allowed the green to become unplayable.

The secretary of the Larson Bowls Club in Waltham Abbey fired off an angry letter to the town council after the club had to cancel its home matches and members started resigning.

Melvyn March of Downlands said that no attention was given to the green over the winter and that elderly club members had to get down on their hands and knees, and dig out bucket loads of weeds in an attempt to make the surface playable.

“The green should be flat like a billiards table,” he said. “It’s like a meadow. There are little flowers like daisies growing in it. Players have to bowl as if they were playing ten pin bowling.

“Other clubs come to us and say ‘what’s that growing on the green?’”

He said that the council, which receives an annual rent of £6,700 from the club, did not cut the grass regularly enough, had not fertilised the green in September, meaning it was not thick enough, and had left weeds growing.

“The problem we’ve got now is that we had four members leave the club at the beginning of the season because of the state of the green,” he added.

“I couldn’t blame them. We charge between £85 and £95 a year for membership and they said they weren’t paying that to play on a field.”

The 64-year-old added that with fewer members, the club would not be able to afford the rent for the coming year, but could not justify raising membership fees.

“Most of the members are pensioners,” he added.

“When you think the club was set up in 1925, there’s a good chance now that maybe next year or certainly the year after, Larson’s Bowls Club will be no longer.”

The town council will consider the letter at its meeting on Thursday.

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