W. G. Grace - Other Sports

Other Sports

Grace was an outstanding athlete as a young man and won the 440 yards hurdling title at the National Olympian Games at Crystal Palace in August 1866. In addition to running, he was an excellent thrower as evidenced when he threw a cricket ball 122 yards during an athletics event at Eastbourne.

Grace played football for the Wanderers on several occasions although he did not feature in any of their FA Cup-winning teams.

In later life, after his family moved to Mottingham, Kent, he became very interested in lawn bowls. He founded the English Bowling Association in 1903 and became its first president. He helped found an international competition with Scotland, Ireland and Wales, captaining England from the inaugural international at Crystal Palace in 1903 until 1908. He was also keen on curling. His interest in golf brought him into intimate contact with one of his biographers Bernard Darwin, who said that Grace played golf "with a mixture of keen seriousness and cheerful noisiness". He could drive straight and sometimes putt well but, for reasons that Darwin could not understand, "he never could play an iron shot well".