Champ lawn bowler expelled from club fights to return to the greens
A champion lawn bowler who has enjoyed the sport for 50 years has sued his local club after he was expelled for life over claims he told a barmaid to ‘piss off’.
Police & Courts
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A champion lawn bowler who has enjoyed the sport for 50 years has sued his local club after he was expelled for life over claims he told a barmaid to piss off.
Alan Thomas Elliott, 71, from Labrador on the Gold Coast, has applied to the Supreme Court in Brisbane in a bid to overturn his life ban from the Paradise Point Bowls Club, and argues that the expulsion is hurting his good reputation in the tight-knit bowling community.
“I am the first bowler in history to be expelled for life for not ordering a drink,” Mr Elliott joked to The Courier-Mail outside of court.
“I am very well known in the bowling world, and this allegation throws all my credibility out the window,” Mr Elliott said.
His expulsion from the club, where he has been a member for 18 months, blocked him from competing in the “Champion of Champions” tournament earlier this month, and also from playing in the state titles.
Mr Elliott says in his affidavit filed in court that the first he learned that he was in trouble with club officials was on September 14 when the chairman of the Paradise Point Bowls Club called him on his phone and told him he was “expelled for life”.
“He offered no reasons as to the expulsion and he then hung up the telephone,” Mr Elliott told the court. Three days later he received a formal copy of an expulsion notice in his mailbox.
“I have never been afforded the right to defend myself nor have I been advised of any reasons for the expulsion or any change nor have I been given a right of hearing,” Mr Elliott says in his affidavit.
Mr Elliott told The Courier-Mail he was upset to be falsely accused when he had not done anything wrong.
“My name has been dragged through the mud in the bowling world,” he said.
On October 21 a Supreme Court registrar adjourned the case to a date to be fixed, with submissions to be filed by the end of November.
Club lawyer Joseph Brighouse did not return emails seeking comment.
