uStrike bowling information
Ten-pin history
Ten-pin bowling has had its ups and downs over the years. Descended from a long line of bowling games that go
back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians, it is more recently descended from Kegal, a nine-skittle German
game which spread across Europe and into America.
In an era when gatherings of people often meant bad news for the powers-that-be, ninepin bowling was banned. As
you may imagine, with concerted effort and great mathematical insight, a loophole was found in the law and an
extra pin was added to the original nine. Thus the diamond of the nine pins became the triangle of the ten.
1946 was a big year for bowling in America with AMF producing the first automatic pin-spotter (a device for
clearing away fallen pins and leaving the untouched pins in place, a job which had been done by hand up until
that point). In 1960 the newly-mechanised ten-pin bowling was introduced to the UK.
Ten-pin bowling took the UK by storm, with alleys opening up one after the other. At its peak there were over
160 bowling alleys in the UK, but a lack of re-investment led to a general deterioration of bowling alleys, with
a commensurate decline in their image. In the 1970s a major chain operator pulled out of bowling and converted
many of the more luxurious alleys into Bingo halls. The industry nearly collapsed, with two thirds of the
existing alleys closing over the next few years.
Until the mid 1980s there was little, if any, new investment in the sport with the decline in interest being
attributed to the complex scoring system, especially as it was a manual process then. However, this all
changed with the introduction of computers and automated electronic scoring systems. This meant that the
general public only had to enter their names into the computers and everything else was done automatically.
This changed the face of bowling and was largely responsible for the new found interest in the sport.
AMF carried this revitalisation of the sport by embarking on a major refurbishment programme. This
re-investment led to the construction of many bright, modern and attractive sites and began the second golden
age of bowling. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the number of ten-pin bowling alleys across the country
rose to over two hundred. This was higher than it had ever been in the sixties, then the peak of the sport's
popularity.
Today, over 100 million bowlers play in over 90 different countries. More men and women worldwide play bowling
than any other sport, with the possible exception of football. Bowling has far more registered dues-paying
participants than any other sport, and there is an active movement to make bowling an Olympic sport, especially
by the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs, the world governing organisation for nine and ten-pin bowling.
[source: bbc.co.uk & Wikipedia]