'We're still friends after meeting in a bowling club 50 years ago'

1967. The Beatles, the Vietnam War, the capture of Che Guevara - and the formation of a student sports club whose still meet up regularly nearly 60 years later.

These days, the reunions of the Sheffield Students' Tenpin Bowling Club attract attendees from Australia, Hong Kong and the US.

The group includes lifelong friends and several couples who met on the "lanes" and have been married for more than 50 years.

Pete "Fuzz" Jordan, 76, founded the club with friends in 1967 and it competed until the early 2000s. The first reunion was held in 1992 to mark their 25-year anniversary.

The gatherings have continued at three-year intervals ever since, and often play matches against current university teams.

"Whilst the old boys generally lost the bowling, they won the drinking afterwards!," says Pete.

He adds: "Some of us are getting a bit decrepit so we are just bowling the one game, but we still have a good body of bowlers.

"We might have been properly good bowlers once, but speaking for myself I am properly awful these days. We still take the job seriously though!"

The club was originally for students, but within a year grew to be the UK's largest tenpin bowling league and the team were national champions from 1970-72.

Mr Jordan, who lives in Mattersey, Nottinghamshire, says strong friendships were formed and three couples have marked their golden wedding anniversaries.

They have just lost their former coach driver, Bert 'The Bus" Fiander, who attended the reunions until well into his 90s.

The latest meet-up this month saw 42 gather in Sheffield. Activities included a canal cruise.

"It started, perhaps predictably, in the pub on Saturday lunchtime, and was followed by an evening cruise on the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal," he says.

"All the team captains from the first five years of the club were present, there were also 10 of the supremely successful 1970 Sheffield inter-university team at the reunion."

They met for bowling on Sunday morning at Rotherham Superbowl, where the average age of the bowlers was 75.

"The reunion concluded with a buffet lunch at the bowl, and it has to be said that the bar did some very good business thereafter.

"The next reunion – for 60 years – will be in 2027."

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