Indoor bowling is thriving in Huddersfield despite a threat to facilities.

And now three members of Huddersfield Indoor Bowling Club will represent Yorkshire on Saturday (Jan 10), one of them for the first time in 16 years.

Damien Talbot, Jack Dyson and Colin Lloyd have all earned county call-ups for the national Liberty Trophy in Grantham, Lincolnshire, amid continuing uncertainty over the club’s facilities.

The club, which has 50 members, is based at Huddersfield Sports Centre which is set to close this year.

The sports centre will be replaced by the new £36 million Huddersfield Leisure Centre at Springwood, on target to open in the summer.

Bowlers were left furious when it emerged that there would be no indoor bowling facilities in the new centre, leaving up to 500 regular bowlers in limbo.

Whitcliffe Mount Sports Centre in Cleckheaton is also being replaced and Kirklees Council has again frozen out bowlers.

There were talks between bowlers and council officials late last year and alternative facilities are being investigated. One possibility is the bowling dome at Huddersfield’s Leeds Road playing fields.

Mr Talbot, 42, also secretary of Huddersfield Indoor Bowling Club, said: “Despite everything the club is having a really good year and more people are coming into the game.

“We’ve had a meeting with Kirklees and it all seems a bit more positive. We are just waiting for them to come back to us.”

Mr Talbot said if there were no facilities in Huddersfield it would mean competitive bowlers having to travel to Leeds, Selby or Doncaster.

“But more than that we are worried about the hundreds of other bowlers aged 50-plus who just play for the exercise and the socialising. Some of them at Huddersfield are in their late 80s or early 90s so what else would they do if they didn’t play bowls?”

Mr Talbot, of Rastrick, who has been bowling for 23 years, last represented the county in 1998 when he was unbeaten at that level for six years.

He was among five Huddersfield bowlers nominated for this weekend’s squad of 24 with three selected.

“It’s a great achievement for a small club like ours,” he said. “As for me, there’s life in the old dog yet!”