Cannon Hill Bowls Club has its last shot playing the Bulimba Cup

Cannon Hill Bowls Club players pull on the green and navy shirt for the last time this Saturday, ending a 50 year history of champion players.

Alexander McKendrick is cheered on by Ed Williams, Craig Morris, Ronnie Rorsch, and Paul (Macka) McLellan as they train for the club’s final game. Picture: Renae Droop/AAP

IN their heyday there were 240 men’s players and 120 women.

Now Cannon Hill Bowls Club are down to 20 members.

They don’t mind being called a “bunch of misfits” and take the nickname “the Cannon Hillbillies” in good humour.

Their chairman has dreadlocks and rides a Harley Davidson, some are champion players, one is the club greenkeeper, others have volunteered countless hours to keep the club bowling, but they all love bowls, a beer and each others’ company and they’re pretty competitive.

Their slogan is “If you’re gunna be a gun be a cannon”.

Sadly the Cannons play their last game on Saturday at the Bulimba Bowls Cup, another casualty of declining membership in the sport and stifling costs to run a venue.

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The day also closes the book on five decades of history for Cannon Hill Bowls Club.

The walls of the clubhouse are filled with honour boards naming the club’s champions like the Ashcrofts and the Gilbert brothers taking out numerous titles over two decades from the 1970s.

Three of the four Gilbert brothers won the 1985 Metropolitan Fours.

Bowls Queensland chairman Peter Williamson played at the club, taking out the 2011 A singles, and was in the championship Fours team in 2007.

The club won the Pennants Division 6 in 2017 and current bowler Tony Bambach claimed a club record in 2012 taking out the men’s novice singles, A Grade and B Grade singles in the same year.

Former club secretary Ronnie Rorsch and club chairman Ed Williams are sad to see the club close. Picture: Renae Droop/AAP

Cannon Hill Bowls Club was founded in 1966.

The lease for the Cannon Hill Community Sports and Bowls Club expires on May 27 and the struggling club will not renew the lease with council requiring extensive renovations to the club.