England captain Kirk Smith is guest of honour at Gosport Bowls Club’s open day

Bowlers of all abilities were welcome along to get a taste of the sport across two days.

Smith, a friend of Gosport member and former international coach Derek Collins, passed on some expert advice to those in attendance.

Gosport BC secretary Malcolm Weston thanked Smith for making the trip to the club and was 'pleasantly surprised' with the numbers who attended and interest in the event.

He said: 'It went really well. We were quite pleasantly surprised, we had quite a response from the public coming in.

‘We had the England Bowls team captain down for the day as our guest of honour and he was fantastic.

‘It was a very good weekend. We had quite a response from the people who came along trying to chase us up to get registration forms and that. It went better than we were hoping.'

England Bowls president Paul Robson was also a visitor to Gosport BC during the open event.

The club are beginning a four-week pre-registration for four players who attended over the weekend.

Secretary Weston is hoping more will follow suit after the success of the open day.