THERE was a busy sports programme that first weekend of October 1957. The Scottish national football team drew 1-1 with Northern Ireland in Belfast. Hearts recorded a 9-0 victory over East Fife. Britain won the Ryder Cup, at Lindrick, for the first time since 1933. The programme also included rugby matches, racing at Lanark, and boxing and swimming. But the Saturday also saw the sad demise, after more than a century, of Hillhead Bowling Club, one of the oldest in the city. The club’s records showed that it had been established in 1849, “on a small patch of ground which last year was a potato garden”, in Bank Street. A more suitable green was opened nearby in 1860 and, in the early 1880s, the club moved to Hamilton Drive. Reported the Glasgow Herald in October 1957: “The BBC, who acquired ownership of the ground from the University Court in 1935, propose building on it, and the club is being wound up since a suitable alternative site for its activities is not available in the district. And so a fine old bowling club with an honoured name and a wonderful tradition passes on, but, in the passing, it may justly be claimed that the fond hope expressed by some of the original members of the club ‘that the Hillhead Bowling Club may long be prosperous’ has surely been fully realised.” Its tournament successes had included several Glasgow Cups, most recently in 1954.