Klootschieten

Later, fist-sized balls made of Applewood were drilled crosswise, and the holes filled with lead to achieve the desired weight.

In 1659, the Dutch reformer Jacobus van Oudenhoven recorded Kloot werpen on a Sunday after church services in his Register of Sins.

The sport was primarily played in the winter months, and its traditional light sportswear was considered a risk factor for deaths from pneumonia.

In the Nazi era, the FKV resisted integration into the National Socialist Imperial Federation for Physical Exercise by not registering as a sporting organization, with the reasoning that klootschieten was not an athletic event but a traditional Friesian game local to the area.

The FKV joined the National Socialist Culture Community and therefore retained a certain degree of latitude not granted to sporting clubs.

In the field (veld) version of klootschieten, it is the intention, alone or in a team, to reach a particular patch of grass and/or sand in as few throws as possible (similar in this respect to golf).

An important consideration in the street version is to keep the bowl away from obstacles such as ditches, gutters, streams, long grass etc., which would reduce the distance of ones "shoot".

The experienced player will sometimes deliberately aim for such places on uphill stretches, to avoid the possibility of the bowl rolling back downhill.

The goal in the standing or setting (zetten) style is to see how far the kloot (bowl) can travel in the air (similar in this respect to the hammer throw and shotput).

It is primarily played along the coast and borders of North Germany, such as in Ostfriesland, Oldenburg, Butjadingen, Dithmarschen, Nordfriesland, Emsland, and Grafschaft Bentheim.

European championships (as road bowling) have been held since 1969 (every four years since 1980) between the Netherlands, Ireland and Germany in the three disciplines of field, street and standing competition.