Keith Stedman was present on the day of the 2005 competition and passed on this front page from Bowling Life published in 1932 and found under the floor covering of a house at Bendemeer in northern NSW and now in our archives.

Some time in the late 1940’s, Killara Bowling Club and KGC commenced a bi-annual match played March and August.

After the discussions on trophy, it was left to Alex Phillips and Jack Kyd to devise something suitable. They came up with a wooden bowl of Vitae Lignum, “wood of life”, mounted on a base. All original bowls were made out of wood (you can’t imagine Sir Frankie Drake using plastic can you?) and as this particular timber was so hard, it was eminently suitable.

The iconic bowl was donated by Keith Stedman, the grandson of James Stedman of J. Stedman Henderson Sweets Ltd., manufacturers of “Sweetacres” brand confectionary.

An aging James used this wooden bowl until his coach advised him to come up to date and buy some of these “new fangled plastic things”. Our trophy was first played for in 1979 but the bowl thereon would be at least 80 years old.

The name of this much fought over useless piece of kitsch is the “Killara Bowl”. (A bit like the “America’s Cup” really!) Although named the Killara Bowl it is erroneously referred to as the “Stedman Bowl” after having been used by James and donated by Keith.