The Friday night drinks that led to building a bowling alley
A group of like-minded Invercargill folk would meet each Friday for a drink at the Grand Hotel. One night they decided to build a bowling alley.
It started with Friday night drinks in the 1980s.
A group of like-minded Invercargill folk would meet each Friday for a drink at the Grand Hotel.
It was then and there when five blokes lamented the lack of entertainment and activity offerings in the city.
John Cockroft, Tony Major, Terry Young, Mick Hesselin, and Ross Green decided to play a role in doing something about that.
The five were all prominent Invercargill people in their own fields.
Cockroft a lawyer, Major a engineer, Green in real estate, Hesselin an architect, while Young founded Yunca, a now international renown company.
In 1987 they decided to develop a bowling alley on the corner of Leet St and Kelvin St.
It took five months and a reported $2 million investment to turn the former J. Johnstone and Sons engineering workshop into that bowling alley.
On November 27, 1987 Super Bowl was offcially opened by then mayor Eve Poole.
About 140 people were invited to the opening.
During the past 35 years thousands of Southlanders have celebrated birthdays at the venue, whittled away rainy days there, or have been the venue for a social club function.
It has all happened while wearing those odd bowling shoes, with the background soundtrack that of the clattering pins, mixed in with the noise of the machines that deliver the balls back to their owners.
Thirty-five years on, Cockroft, Major and Young remain as directors of Southland Ten Pin Bowling Centre Limited, which still owns Super Bowl.
Sadly, Hesselin died last year, and Green in 2018.
In 2019 the group revealed they planned to put the bowling alley on the market.
Although four years on Cockroft - who now lives in Central Otago - confirmed they still owned it at this point. It hadn’t actually offcially been put up for sale.
Cockroft said they were still working through the prospect of selling it.
“We are getting up in years, so we have got to be a bit realistic about it.”
Super Bowl has managed to last the test time as many other entertainment offerings have opened and closed in Invercargill through the 35 years it has been operating.
It’s a 12-lane alley powered by the 75-year-old Brunswick pinsetters.
For the record, there has been four perfect games during the time it had been opened, the first being Wayne Macdougall in 1997 and latest being Gary Low in 2010.