{"id":549861,"date":"2026-07-29T17:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/549861\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T17:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T17:00:10","slug":"commonwealth-games-scotlands-sophie-mcgrouther-on-breaking-bowls-stigma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/549861\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Games: Scotland&#8217;s Sophie McGrouther on breaking bowls stigma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When anyone of a certain age says they play bowls, they face a barrage of questions. At the crux of most of them is, &#8216;why?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then throw in the comments about it being a boring, old man&#8217;s game. The record has never changed. Until the DJ at the SEC has their way&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McGrouther has been asked time and time again. Her answers, though, may be a little surprising.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Usually parents or grandparents can be pointed to, but the Fife native didn&#8217;t have anyone hauling her along to her local club. She, quite literally, went along herself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After being introduced to the game aged 10 via a taster session at school, she made the decision to have a go at Abbeyview Bowling Club. And to the surprise of many at the time, she stuck at it. Thank goodness she did.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I used to go to the club after school and they would laugh at me coming in on my scooter and they&#8217;d be like, &#8216;who is she?&#8217;,&#8221; McGrouther told BBC Sport Scotland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For me, it&#8217;s the social aspect, the friends that you meet all over the world that really that keeps it going. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I definitely missed out on a lot of events and things because I was always focused on training, but it&#8217;s just nice that it&#8217;s all been worth it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When anyone of a certain age says they play bowls, they face a barrage of questions. At the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-549861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}