Les Russell has been a member of Whittlesea Bowls Club for 36 years and a resident of the suburb his whole life.
”I was born in the front bedroom of our family home in Walnut Street, Whittlesea, and have lived here all my life. When I left school at 14 and started my butcher’s apprenticeship, I used to catch the train from Whittlesea, change at Thomastown and go to work in North Carlton, leaving at 5.45am and getting home at 7pm.
The train is long gone and many things have changed in the town but the Whittlesea Bowls Club still has the same sense of community it started with when it opened in 1955.
I joined in 1976 when my doctor said I was getting too old, at 48, for tennis. I’m still a life member of the Whittlesea Tennis Club and the local football and bowls club. Tennis was fast and competitive – bowls is very competitive, too.
In the late 1970s and 1980s I won four club singles titles. With my (late) brother Alan and John Turner we won the Victorian metropolitan triples twice in the 1980s and the Victorian country masters triples at Benalla in the 1980s. But it is not about winning. As long as you can bowl, you can enjoy yourself. Our club is a terrific community with 180 bowls members and countless social members, and the club is a free meeting place for 20 organisations – like the Lions, Rotary, Probus and RSL clubs.
My wife, Shirley, was a national bowls umpire. She passed away in June last year. This club is wonderful for widows and widowers; you feel like you’re part of the family. And it’s not just for seniors, we have a lot of school kids come here to learn.
As a club we did well in the pennant competition last year, so this year we are fielding six sides of 16 players each – that’s four teams of four – in division two, three, five and eight, and two more in divison seven.
At the moment I have been practising for the third side, but the team I play in depends on my form. As long as I get a game, I’ll be happy.
The Victorian Metropolitan Pennant season starts on October 6
