Stewart Minchew has achieved plenty since he first took up the game of bowls more than 30 years ago.

The 71-year-old is an eight-times Gloucestershire short mat singles champion, a County Cup winner and a Gloucestershire League Division One winner.

Tewkesbury Bowling Club’s chairman has won a whole host of other trophies too, but there’s one in particular that he’s still very keen to get his hands on.
“I’ve never won the Tewkesbury Bowling Club's men’s championship,” he said. “I’ve been runner-up three times.

“I’m still trying and I’m going to keep going, that’s the one I haven’t got. My ambition is to win it.”

Minchew, a retired civil servant who worked in Ashchurch all his life, took up bowls some 34 years ago.

When he was younger he was a keen skittles player and it was through skittles that the one-time Tewkesbury School pupil took up bowls.

“Ken Hudman, who was secretary of the Tewkesbury Skittles League, suggested I give it a go,” he said.

Initially, Minchew wasn’t keen. “I said I would play when I was retired,” he laughed.

But Minchew soon relented and started playing short mat bowls at Bushley village hall, since then he’s never really looked back.

“I was a quick learner, I took to it straight away,” he said. “I had an instinct for it, within 18 months to two years I was capable of giving anyone a game.”

He was soon selected for Gloucestershire – he’s a former county captain – and was playing all over the country.

But despite all his short mat success, it wasn’t until the mid-noughties that he joined Tewkesbury Bowling Club and started to play outdoor bowls.

“It was through Gill Johnson,” he said. “We played a lot of short mat bowls together, together we’d won everything there is to win in short mat bowling in Gloucestershire.

“She wanted to join Tewkesbury and she wanted me to go along with her.”
And soon after they’d joined Tewkesbury they set up a short mat section which is still thriving today.

Minchew says he will “never be a great outdoor bowler” but he has still won plenty of club titles and also played for Gloucestershire.

So what makes a good bowler?

“The same as with anything,” he said. “An eye for detail, concentration and being prepared to put yourself out. Practice makes perfect.

“You’ve got to own your own skills. If there’s something you’re not good at you’ve got to keep practising.”

Minchew, who is married to Elaine, is in his third year as chairman of Tewkesbury Bowling Club and while the club and the sport take up plenty of his time, he has other interests as well.

Back in the day he was very keen on judo and he also used to race pigeons.

He still keeps some pigeons at his home in Claydon just outside Ashchurch and said: “I joined Tewkesbury Pigeon Club in 1968 when I was 14 and I’m still a member today.

“I raced pigeons competitive-ly until 2009.”

He enjoyed that and he’s certainly enjoying seeing Tewkesbury Bowling Club continue to fly high.

The club was formed in 1828 – it is the second oldest bowls club in Gloucestershire – and Minchew said: “We’ve got about 95 bowling members which is pretty good.

“We started some coaching sessions about six or seven years ago and they’ve paid off, we’ve got some real talent coming through.”