Participating at Queenstown Squash Club’s annual Easter tournament last weekend was probably the only 85-year-old still competing at the sport — the legendary Barry Gardiner.
The Christchurch-based veteran’s regularly played the tournament since his son Dave — no slouch at the sport, himself — took over the local Lone Star restaurant in 2006.
Made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2019 for services to sport, particularly squash, Barry’s a three-time world masters champ, having won over-50s, over-60s and over-70s titles between 1991 and 2008.
Having played for 63 years, he claims he’s ‘‘no good’’ now: ‘‘Just getting to the court’s good enough for me these days.’’
To which Dave responds: ‘‘He can still hit the ball very well.’’
Barry says one of his proudest moments came in 2016, when within weeks his granddaughter Megan won the national women’s squash title, Dave won the NZ over-40s title, son-in-law Grant took out the over-50s and he won the over-75s title.
What he loves about the sport is ‘‘it’s not only such a physical game but also a very skilful game’’.
‘‘You’ve got to manipulate your opponents around, you’ve got to find their weaknesses and play to your strengths.
‘‘And you’ve got to be in good physical condition.’’
Barry formerly played a myriad of sports, and has broken his teeth playing eight of them.
He’s proud of the fact he was an emergency forward for the NZ rugby league team in ’58 and emergency back for the South Island rugby team just seven years later.
Nowadays, he’s down to just four sports, he says — squash, golf, cycling and swimming.
In February, he teamed up with Dave for the Lake Tewa Pro-Am Invitational golf tournament at Queenstown’s Jack’s Point.
While he didn’t pick up a win over the weekend, he kept his opponents, including 70-year-old Ray Frew, from Kurow, honest.
