Individual strengths lead to team win

NICK TOLERTON | 15th January 2010

Alvin Gardiner has been a proud wearer of the red and black for 20 years in Canterbury bowls teams - but he should have been in black and yellow when he won his first national title last weekend.

The 54-year-old skipped a composite four with Blake Signal and Clint Carroll (Stokes Valley) and Robbie Bennett (Johnsonville) to victory in the blue riband event of the nationals.

It was the first national title for all of them - and they hadn't played together as a four until their first match in Wellington.

So why was a top Canterbury bowler lining up with all those North Islanders?

The connection goes back five years when Gardiner got dropped from the Canterbury team, and was told there were some good tournaments around Wellington.

He was called up on a Friday night to rush to Napier to play in a triples tournament with Signal as skip.

"We got second, and came back the next year and were second again," said Gardiner.

"We thought we've got to win it sooner or later, and the next year we did. We won a trip to Oz for a tournament on the Gold Coast. It cost me a fortune - we only got the fares!"

Since then Gardiner has played in various combos with his fours teammates, but not as a quad until the nationals.

Looking at their individual strengths they knew they had potential to do well, but came down to earth in their first match when they lost to a Nelson team - and dropped eight on one end!

It was Alvin and the Chump-munks that morning, but they got on song and reeled off 11 straight wins.

"It might have been the wake-up we needed," he said. "We thought, we've got to fight now, and we kept going and going and going."

In the semis the prison officer and his mates slammed the door on the defending champs, Peter Belliss' four, 21-17, and came from 11-15 behind against Ray Lovie's composite in the final to win 24-17.

That was his best moment in bowls, said Gardiner, who has been in some inter-provincial title-winning teams during 20 years in red and black, and also won seven Christchurch and, as a young player in Invercargill, five Southland centre titles.

As a youngster Gardiner was a talented cyclist (placing third at an age group track nationals), softballer, soccer player, and rifle shooter, and took up bowls at 18.

When he moved to Christchurch in 1990, a Southland mate was playing at Spreydon. Gardiner phoned the club on a Friday night looking for matches - and won Spreydon's championships singles and pairs that weekend.

He and Paul Matheson combined in six centre title-winning teams for Spreydon, and Gardiner has since played for Halswell, Riccarton Racecourse, and, for the last two seasons, Elmwood.

Before his success in Wellington, his best at the nationals had been reaching the semis with a Halswell four in Dunedin about eight years ago.