BCB History
Founded in 1993 British Corporate Bowling (BCB) was formed to organise and run the British qualifying rounds of the Bowling European Corporative (BEC) Championships succeeding AMF who had both sponsored and run the event since 1970. Initially under the control of Jock Caie, a former AMF employee the mantle was passed to Jeff Davis when Jock was offered and accepted the role of General Secretary for the BEC itself. Jeff retained the role until he succeeded Jock as General Secretary on Jock’s retirement in 2005 where upon there have been a number of individuals who have held the Great Britain Representative to ensure the UK’s interests are fully represented within the European arena.
2018 see’s the BEC itself enter its 48th year having begun life in Geneva on 7th June 1970 where the first official meeting of the BEC Committee was held during a tournament organised by the international association of leisure. Attended by 6 countries including Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and Great Britain the meeting set out the rules and policies that the organisation would follow, with the first European Championship for Corporative Bowling being held in Berlin a year later in 1971. Fittingly, the tournament will return to Berlin in 2020 when the organisation celebrates its 50th anniversary year.
Members of the organisation from its inception, where the UK was initially represented by Mr Les WOOLLEY, Operations manager for Ambassador Bowling Limited, London, Great Britain has over the years played a huge part in keeping the competition and the committee alive supplying the organisations general secretary over many years as previously mentioned.
In the competition itself, the UK has also been fairly successful over the years with countless British Companies not only making the finals (top 12) at the BEC but also making the podium on numerous occasions. In the four person team 1975 saw the first UK winners, a team from Heathrow Auto’s taking the glory, whilst a team from Halifax Building Society repeated the event in 2005. In the Ladies and Mixed doubles Barclays Bank were the dominating force during the 1980’s winning that event consecutively in 1984 & 1985 with many other podium finishes in the surrounding years. The latter years have proved less successful in the way of podiums but with our continuance in getting a good number of teams into the finals each year the UK remains a strong and active member of the organisation.