Despite the fact that all bowls has been closed for much of the last 10 months because of the coronavirus pandemic, the St Andrews club in Weston-super-Mare have weathered the storm.

As the leading indoor club in Weston, St Andrews rely heavily on the revenue from the indoor season, but they had been playing for only four weeks when tier restrictions meant the club had to close.

A brief respite when members were allowed to roll up ended with the move into tier three and now the current national lockdown is likely to mean there will be very little if any indoor bowls possible before the season finishes at the end of March.

However, long-serving chairman Graham Burgess says that the club remain solvent and are looking forward to a full outdoor season, restrictions permitting.

“A grant of £25,000 that we got from the council via the government during the first lockdown made a big difference,” he said.

“We have just applied for the latest lockdown grant, which would be £9,000 in our case.

“Without that £25,000, our finances would have been considerably depleted. With the whole of last outdoor season cancelled, we missed out on rink fees, match raffles and bar revenue, as well as all our fund-raising social events and still had considerable outgoings, including paying our greens contractors.”

Malcolm Goddard and Debbie Baker, the club’s outdoor fixture secretaries, are arranging a full programme of matches for this summer, including the new ladies’ Somerset County League. The season is due to start on the weekend of April 17/18.

Chairman Burgess has been unable to hold a proper management committee meeting since last March, but the smooth running of the club has continued.

“We’ve been contacting each other by phone and it has worked quite well,” he said.

The pandemic restrictions meant that none of the club’s annual general meetings could be held. But all members of committees agreed to carry on for another year.

Brian Reeves will be the men’s outdoor captain, taking over from Mike Stocker, who is ill, and his vice-captain will be Jim Warren, one of the club’s considerable number of octogenarians.

A few of them have now had the Coronavirus vaccine, including 86-year-old chairman Burgess, who added: “When we are eventually able to start, we want to do something to attract people to return. Everyone has paid their subs, including all the life members, who are entitled to free membership, and no one has asked for their money back.

"But I’ve asked Brian Reeves to try to come up with something special for the day when we eventually re-open so that people will be want to come back.”