After 91 years of bowling at the Seaton Bowling Club, Seacliff Gardens, the time has come for the diggers to move in, writes Alan Nicholas.

A tremendous amount of effort has been put in since the green was laid back in 1929, to keep it in excellent order for the club members.

However, in the last year the green has suffered a very extensive infestation by leather jackets, in amongst the roots of the grass.

This encouraged all the crows and seagulls in the neighbourhood to regularly turn up for a major feast when nobody was around. Our greenkeeping team of, Peter Barradell and Terry Hurley-Smith would often turn up to find mass destruction of the green, where the birds had literally torn up areas of grass to get their feed.

Despite great effort by our team plus a number of members offering help to make repairs, it became obvious that expert help was required.

After taking professional advice from Rigby Taylor of Camberley, it was decided to take the opportunity of the lockdown brought about by the Covid 19 pandemic, which meant that our club was shut down, to replace our green.

Machinery and all the necessary new soil, grass seed etc, has now arrived and work will commence straightaway, firstly stripping off all the turf and taking out the topsoil and all remnants of the leather jackets.

It is expected that the new green will be ready to play next spring.

A lot of preparation work has had to be done prior to the professionals starting their work, including replacing all the ditch boards and green edgings, and this has all been done by our green keeping team and a number of volunteer members. Of course, none of this comes cheap and much effort has been put in by club officials and members to raise funds to meet the costs.

Club captain, Di Morley said: “Fund-raising is always a huge part of Seaton Bowling Club and even more necessary this year as the club has not been able to open.”

She continued: “We must also express our sincere and grateful thanks to our landlords, East Devon District Council, who have made possible for the area around the green to be made accessible for the contractors to do their work.”