John Bailey

Without question John Bailey is the most decorated and most famous Welsh bowler of all time! John is an enigma! John is simply the best of the best and is getting better and better each year! At 32 years old, John has the Bowling World at his feet and his reputation as an elite County Bowler and top class Competition Bowler travels well beyond his own Country and surrounding Counties. John Bailey is a house hold name within his sport and having already beaten the likes of Brian Duncan and G. I. Wilson in competitive matches John’s stock is as priceless as anybodies within the game!

Coming from one of the most famous Bowling families in the game John Bailey has always been a star in the making and has been at the forefront of the Welsh County system since a very early age, playing as Don James top gun in his historic Welsh Junior County Team that won an impressive three British Team Championships in the mid 90’s. John of course has since gone on to become a Wales Senior regular and is seen as their talisman as he leads the team into battle as the number one block, no matter who the opposition! John has now amassed well over 30 to 40 caps for his Country and will go on collecting caps for as long as he cares to play game! He is that damn good! He is a walking, talking, living legend already!

As a Competition Bowler John has won just about everything there is to win in the game! In his local area John has won the highly prestigious Baxter Cup, the sought after Dicken Cup, the highly competitive Bangor (31 up) Singles Open and far too many other area Competitions to mention! Plus, John has won many of these Titles on more than one occasion! However, being as ambitious a Bowler as John Bailey is he is not content to simply rule the local Bowling scene and is a regular visitor to many other Open venues travelling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom in pursuit of competition and has won many more Tournaments in other Counties, including Cheshire, Manchester and Counties further a field.

John’s bowling legacy is so impressive that there is probably more information missing from this write up than there is actually on it! John just seems to have won achievements galore wherever he has trod the turf to bowl. As a Junior Player, John Bailey was Crowned Welsh Junior Merit Champion on more than one occasion and was also a winner of the Junior Waterloo Championship, which was an achievement John was successful in replicating as a Senior Player winning the Men’s Waterloo Tournament in 2005 against some of the finest players in the game of bowls.

In both 2003 and 2007 John Bailey was the winner of the Welsh Merit and has been a regular fixture within the Champion of Champions Tournament held annually at Blackpool, winning the competition in front of an army of welsh supporters in 2007, which was regarded as an historic moment in Welsh Bowls history.

Other notable competition victories under John Bailey’s belt are the Isle of Man Tourism Tournament Championship which John won this season while competing on the island against a host of top level players. John Bailey has also this season won the grand slam at the Colwyn Bay Festival by winning the Bill Hughes Trophy, the Mixed Pairs Tournament and also the George Davis Tournament which is the Premier event of the North Wales Competition calendar, a competition John has now won two years in a row!

John is simply a different class and plays the game of bowls in an almost effortless manner; such is the skill of his talent. John Bailey has build a fantastic yet growing legacy within the game and it really doesn’t look like his dominance within Welsh bowling is going to come to an end anytime soon!