Cologne, the notably pretty city on the Rhine and the site for the latest edition of the Gay Games, (July 31 to August 7), bills itself as Germany’s gay and lesbian capital.

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And like most great gay cities, it knows how to throw a party, with its annual gay-friendly November street carnival one of the largest events of its kind in Europe.

Come the end of July, Germany’s fourth largest city (after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich) will be overrun by an anticipated 12,000 gay men and lesbians, all hoping to showcase their athletic abilities, while also partaking in an abundance of gay and lesbian art and culture (along with the requisite dance parties and parades).

One of those participating will be Perth’s Ray Currell, long-time community stalwart, who will be one of only four WA contestants in Cologne, competing in ten-pin bowling with his partner in both sport and life, Adrian Iley, along with Robert Hughes and David Williams.

This year numbers of competitors are significantly down from previous years, a decline Currell finds difficult to pin to any one cause.

While the numbers representing Perth have waxed and waned with the times, climaxing with 40 at the 2002 Sydney Games, Currell has been a constant presence since Perth first competed in the 1994 New York Games.

In 1987, former rodeo and Hollywood stunt man Paul Mart was traveling the world drumming up interest in the games, when Currell attended a meeting of about 50 like-minded people Mart addressed at the old Beechwood Guesthouse in Palmerston St near Hyde Park

‘I was going to Vancouver for holidays anyway at around the time of the 1990 games, so I thought why not, let’s go have a look; and who would be the first person I see at the swimming carnival but Paul Mart, who yelled at me, “so where’s your team?”,’ Currell told OUTinPerth.

‘When I got back to Perth, I said to myself, “Let’s do something about this; we have to have a team at the next games”.’

While Team Sydney has been there from the beginning and Team Melbourne from the second games, Perth first marched into the stadium under its own banner at New York in 1994 and Currell was at the fore, along with 16 others, including swimmers, cyclists and tennis players.

In that first year, the team collected four medals, with James Taylor winning two bronzes for cycling, Peter Carwardine a bronze in tennis and Currell and his three teammates winning a bronze in the ten-pin bowling.

‘We didn’t even qualify for the finals, but one of the Brisbane bowlers hadn’t told anyone he couldn’t stay for the full duration of the tournament so we were the lucky losers.

‘We had such a great time in New York. The bowling alley was all the way out in the sticks of New Jersey, so the bus would collect us each day from Madison Square Gardens.

‘And one day the driver said, “Don’t wander away from the bowling centre. Don’t go left, you’ll get knifed; if you go right, you’ll get raped”.

‘So some silly little queen at the back of the bus pipes up, “Which way’s right?”,’ Currell says, laughing.

‘We had a great time in New York – the party at the Australian ambassador’s, the march down Fifth Avenue – and I’ve been hooked ever since.’

It was in Amsterdam in 1998 that the games and Perth’s contribution to it, really came into its own, with 22 of our own women and men part of a massive 12,000-strong competition corps (as compared with an Olympics cap of 10,500 participants).

Since then the games have been held successfully in Sydney in 2002 (40 participants from Perth), Chicago in 2006 (12), and soon in Cologne, which is giving off all the right signs it will host a successful event.

‘We can’t wait’, Currell says. ‘The games are a massive amount of fun. Anyone who can go should definitely go.’

Germany’s openly gay foreign minister, Dr Guido Westerwelle has been announced as the event’s patron and will open it at the RheinEnergieStadion on July 31.

Steven Carter