the history of bowling
Hi everyone! This is another blog by me, Jamie Cramb from “Cramb in Creative”.
If you know me in real life, you’ll know I am a huge fan of history (basically, all of it) because I just find it all so fascinating. Now, onto what I am going to talk in this blog, about just in case you didn’t read the title you just clicked on… weeeellllllllll….
(ringing phone) Roman Bellic from GTA 4: Niko it’s Roman, lets go BOWLING!
Now, you might ask why I am talking about bowling today like of all things. It’s because I just recently went bowling with my team at Creative Stirling and I had loads of fun, and also really got me thinking about how it all began, so lets begin.
There are 4 different kinds of bowling. There is ten pin bowling, candlepin bowling, duckpin bowling and five pin bowling, but we’re just going to be talking about ten pin bowling as I think that’s one we have all mostly played. Since the Egyptian times, a game similar to bowling was played using stones and pins, and some say it was also used for religious rituals.
Fast forward to one of my favourite time periods in European history, Medieval Europe, and bowling is at one of its peaks. At the time, it was called 9 pines as it was popular and easy to play on for all classes of life, rich or poor. However, all that changed in the 18th century when some several cities in the US banned it for being similar to gambling and not only that but causing crime, which is the modern equivalent of parents saying “video games cause violence”… which dare I say it, I think the reason why bowling was banned is even stupider, LIKE WHAT?! And on how it was unbanned is really funny, they just changed the name of 9 pines to 10 pines as a work around, LOL.
So, how did the modern bowling we know came about you see bowling around?c1840 was becoming more popular and in New York city in that same year the first indoor bowling alley which became massively popular and more locations of indoor bowling alleys started appearing more around the US. In the 1950s became more of a competitive sport drawing top affiliates around the world but at the same time became a fun day out for all ages
Yes, the history of bowling sounds amazing and interesting to learn how it became the game we all know and love today, but just recently on the night of 18th of June 2025 the people of Creative and Made in Stirling (Paul, Vic, Ryan, Joanna, Sam, and yours truly Jamie) went bowling in Falkirk and it was a blast. One heck of a game, and at the end the winner was Vic which was great because Ryan dominating the whole game. She even got a double strike, like whoa! After bowling we went the arcade bit and I had fun playing the ball game where you to balls in the hole while it all falls on your head that was fun. We got whole bunch of tickets to win a prize, and I got 2 prices I got Swizzles, Parma Violets and smiling bubble head it was a great time. I would love to do it again.
Bowling is a amazing fun time and it was fun researching the history of bowling as it shocked me on how it has such a fascinating history and I hope you did too. Thank you for reading and I will see you all soon!
Jamie.