Len’s Bowler collection

LEN TIMCHUR’S

BOWLER MAGAZINE COLLECTION

Meet Leonid Timchur, owner of what we believe to be the largest Bowler magazine collection in Australia. We caught up with Len to find out how he came by the collection and what drives his love of bowls.

How did you start collecting the Bowler magazine?

Someone at the club wanted to give away their collection in 2004 or 2005. I think it was advertised in the Bowler at the time. I didn’t bother with it as I collect a lot of things but I changed my mind and by then someone had already nabbed it. So I carried on collecting my own magazines.

What made you collect the magazines?

I’ve been a coach for years and found the articles useful. My favourite section of the Bowler is the coaching section. I used to like those articles, especially Jacqui Hineman’s articles, they gave me an idea of what to do and where to go. I started writing a monthly article on coaching for our Belmont Services newsletter.

Tell us more about your coaching career.

I used to do a lot of coaching. I’d just finished up on the committee the first year I was at the club, I knew nobody and nobody really knew me. We picked the committee and we had five other people we could call on for anything but there were only four nominations so they decided to try and elect somebody else. My name came up don’t ask me how! I was on the committee for a long time after that as a coach. I have a funny story as I had only been bowling for four years when I started helping and coaching people at the club and some of the older people didn’t take kindly to a young fella telling them what to do. I was one of the young fellas. We had a pair of older guys who were looked at as old people and I was talking to the one guy and he was telling me about the young fella who was taking him to bowls every weekend. He was 67 and the young fella was 65. In those days that was fairly old really.

How many people do you think you have coached over the years?

I couldn’t say, but it’s in the hundreds. I mainly coach people in the beginning stages. I have coached some people who have gone on to do pretty well – I only coach them when they come to me. Some recent successes have been Kane and Jacob Nelson, I coached both of them. I remember Kane playing with toy bowls at the age of four or five and he said he’d had enough of the toy bowls and wanted real bowls. I remember them both from the Bowling Academy. My wife Margaret finally decided she wanted to play bowls. She used to play ten pin. I rung up the secretary and the ladies president and said look, my wife doesn’t have time to be coached when the ladies are coached so can I coach her and they said that was alright. In those days the men coached the men and the ladies coached the ladies. I said this was ridiculous, we have husbands and wives coming along and the wife wants to be coached with the husband or vice versa. We had this thing about the women and men back then. It’s changed now. Marg meets people who say “oh Lenny coached me, Lenny coached me”. She would go on a trip with a bunch of ladies and they’d start talking, and she said she had no idea how many people I’d coached! Marg is out playing bowls at an invitation day today at Belmont. She has taken a lot of plants with her instead of food because of the rules with COVID (see image of Marg’s crocheted covered plants taken to bowls).

What’s the most important thing about coaching to you?

For me the key thing is delivery. For example, one of the guys I was coaching at the club – I told him that on his back-swing his arm was going back and out and I said you’re

BOWLER MAGAZINE COLLECTION

pulling your arm out. You want a smooth, straight delivery and he said no, he’s not going out he’s going straight back. So I said come with me, I took him to the clubhouse, stood him up against the brick wall and said now show me your delivery. Which he did and went ah! OKAY! Once they get a good delivery then it’s uphill from there, not just a reasonable delivery, but a good one.

Do you have any advice for new bowlers?

Go into club competitions. I’ve always said to everyone I’ve coached, put your name down for everything.

How did you start playing bowls?

I used to see people playing bowls and one day I spoke to Marg’s uncle and he took me down to the club. My wife was a sport widow, our first date was to the soccer and from there it just went on and on. I played soccer, cricket, tennis, bowls and she had a lot of time on her own.

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

I have no relations here other than my brother and his family. I’m from the Ukraine and was nine years old when I came over here. During the war, mum and dad got a horse and buggy, because the Germans were starting to retreat and if you were in the road they just went over the top of you. So mum and dad decided they weren’t going to run over the top of us so they went ahead of them with the buggy. We finished up in Germany and got on a ship called the SS Roma and began our 56 day journey to Australia. Coming around the Great Australian Bight can be very rough, the boat was going up and down and there was not a soul on deck. Except for me. I wedged my feet into the railing so I wouldn’t go anywhere.

Men and women were segregated, mum was very sick, dad not much better. Mum was so bad that when the captain saw her he blew his stack and took her up on deck and gave her needles. We nearly lost her. None of us could speak English at the time. I started off In grade 2 and didn’t even know the language. ��Who else collects the Bowler magazine or anything else bowls related? Let us know at media@bowlsqld.org