TABLE TENNIS LEAGUE
Newsletter / November/December 2000
Junior leagues growing fast
The fourth annual Woolwich Junior League started at the Harrow Leisure Centre at the end of October. There are 12 teams competing in two divisions, the Wembley & Harrow and the Wealdstone. The early leaders of the W&H division are The Avengerz and the 'A' Squad, with three wins each in their first three games. The games are played in the two-a-side Davis Cup format, and are up to eleven points best of five.
I popped down to the Leisure Centre one Sunday morning to watch the games in progress, and it was excellent to see the enthusiasm of the players concerned (all of them wearing the red League sponsored shirts, by the way). Allen Roper puts in a great deal of hard work to organise the league, assisted by Mikel Kominski, and it's good to see so many youngsters playing and enjoying the game.
Away from the Leisure Centre, Wembley & Harrow also has a National Junior League team playing in the London Division, and Allen Roper also runs a Woolwich Junior League in Hillingdon, at the Hayes Stadium on Saturday mornings
For information about the activities of the Wembley and Harrow TTC at Harrow Leisure Centre including in particular Juniors please contact Michael Close on (01494 728033) or Allen Roper on (01895 23259)
Website update
Now that the season has started, league and cup results are generally published on-line the week after matches are played. It is hoped that, later in the season, the site will feature league tables and even averages.
Meanwhile, if you're surfing the net, you can find all the latest League news, information, contacts, history, statistics and more at
The League e-mailing list continues to grow, and you can sign up to receive the weekly results and news bulletin by sending a message to Please also use this address if you have any feedback - about the website, the newsletter or any league matter.
Cups & Cup draw
The first round of the team knockout clubs took place in October, with the introduction of the new format, including doubles matches. From what I have heard, the innovation was successful, with several people saying that they enjoyed their evening. Do you have a view on the new format? Please let us know – contact details on page 4.
The draw for the second round of the cups has been made and is as follows:
Elvin Senior Cup / (divisions 1 and 2)London Progress 2 / v / Lowlands 2
Vagabonds 3 / v / Eastcote
Lowlands / v / Vagabonds 2
Vagabonds 4 / v / Hatch End
Kenton / v / London Progress
Vagabonds / v / London Progress 3
Edgware / v / Eastcote 2
Eastcote 3 / v / Apollo
Elvin Senior Plate / (preliminary round)
Sudbury Hill / v / Edgware 2
Maccabi / bye
Elvin Junior Cup / (divisions 3, 4 and 5)
Kenton 2 / v / Canons
Lowlands 6 / v / Oaklands
Eastcote 5 / v / Harrow CC
Lowlands 7 / v / Edgware 5
Edgware 3 / v / Eastcote 4
Headstone / v / Apollo 2
Lowlands 4 / v / Sudbury Hill 3
Sudbury Hill 2 / bye
Elvin Junior Plate / (preliminary round)
Eastcote 8 / v / Vagabonds 5
Lowlands 5 / v / Vagabonds 6
London Progress 4 / v / Headstone 2
Eastcote 7 / v / Lowlands 3
Vagabonds 7 / v / Edgware 4
Vagabonds 8 / bye
Harry Finch Trophy / (divisions 6 and 7)
Harrow CC 2 / v / Pinner CC
Apollo 3 / v / Sudbury Hill 4
Headstone 4 / v / Eastcote 9
Eastcote 10 / v / Apollo 5
Eastcote 11 / v / Greenford Cons.
Apollo 4 / v / Headstone 5
Kenton 3 / v / Headstone 3
Maccabi 3 / v / Lowlands 9
Harry Finch Plate / (preliminary round)
Lowlands 8 / v / Sudbury Hill 5
Edgware 6 / v / Maccabi 2
These matches to be played in the week commencing 13 November.
If your club has lady and/or junior players, don’t forget to enter the Alma Reeve Trophy and/or the Olympus Youth Shield! Teams of two are required and entry forms were attached to the notification of your latest cup game.
Money, money, money!
Does your club qualify for a cash grant? Well, the answer is undoubtedly YES! There are several initiatives in place whereby sports clubs and organisations can apply for grants, mainly under Lottery or Millennium handouts.
For example, the ‘Awards for All’ scheme has so far awarded nearly £120,000 to table tennis organisations in the London area, mainly in parcels of three or four thousand pounds, targeted at specific projects or investment. Other club funding is available for the over 50s, and, for individuals, for coaches, umpires and sports science courses, so get cracking!
For more information, call the London Regional Development Officer Jon Kaufman on 0705 004 2671.
Table Tennis around the world
News reaches the humble surroundings of the editor’s office of two massive city centre table tennis events held in Chicago and Barcelona recently.
The Chicago Ping Pong Festival 2000 featured 300 tables in public places where people could turn up and play for free, as well as several special events to promote the game and participation in it. The festival lasted for seven weeks in August and September, and whilst there are no figures for the number of people who took part, being America, it was surely very many!
Meanwhile, in Barcelona in late October, the one-day ‘Fiesta del ping-pong’ in the main Plaça de Catalunya was held for the fourth year running. Over 10,000 people turned up to play, which the organisers claimed is a world record!
Michael Close recently visited a Table Tennis club in a small village, Weierhof in northern Bavaria, Germany. Despite having a population of only 5,000, the club is flourishing and well organised. The club would like to arrange exchange visits with our youngsters but Michael fears that in the immediate future we have insufficient interest and resources to embark on such a project. He would like to be proved wrong and if any member has any thoughts on the matter please contact him on (01494) 728033.
Meanwhile, we are still trying to arrange a match against our counterparts in Douai, France. Anyone interested in taking part should contact Steve Leven (see the contacts box on page 4) !
London Progress are sending a team out to Donetsk in the Ukraine to play in the European Champions Cup. This will be the first trip abroad for a Progress team, who include Jason Sugrue and Marco Essomba in their squad.
Let’s hope they’ll be eating lots of chicken kiev in preparation, because it’s a long way to go for a best-of-five match! The winners of this match, by the way, will play away in Finland in round 2!
Did you know?
In the 1970/71 Closed Championships, Michael Close became the first, and to this day still the only, player to win both the Men’s and Veteran Men’s singles in the same year. Mary Symes is the only lady to complete the ‘double’, in 1979/80 and 1981/82.
Players’ registration fees for the 1960/61 season were raised to 2/6d (the equivalent of 12½ pence or 0.07 euros in today’s money).
When the League was first played in 1930/31, teams were composed of five players. The format was all-play-all, for one game only, making a total of 25 games to a match. Ladies, in a separate division, had three players per team, in a similar format as for League matches today.
In 1938/39, the men’s matches were changed to four-a-side, with 8 sets played, and, after experiments during temporary War competitions, the three-a-side, nine set format we use today was adopted for the 1946/47 season.
Tournament News
Don’t forget the League Closed Championships, which will take place from 12 to 23 February 2001. Details can be found in the yellow entry form in the centre of your handbook. Please note that at the time of writing, the venue for the Championships has not been decided. The Committee has taken on board the negative feedback from some players after last year’s tournament at the Harrow Leisure Centre, and is trying to find out the availability of Edgware General Hospital for the fortnight as a possible alternative. Details of the decision when it is announced will be published on the Internet and notified to clubs as best as possible - the latest you will know will be when you receive your entry notification.
Regular table tennis events continue to take place at the Leisure Centre, including League matches there this year for the first time. To further the development of the game locally, it is essential that the League has a centre for its activities, which is accessible and regularly available. Unfortunately,
the facilities at the Leisure Centre are not far enough advanced yet to run the League tournament there this year, but there are ongoing efforts to improve the table tennis area for the future.Tournament entries must reach Sanket Shah by Monday 8 January, so please send off your form soon, and don’t forget the self-addressed stamped envelope for your notification. Sanket has taken on the tournament for the first time this year, so please give him a chance and get your entries in on time!
The Greater London Championships(closed regional tournament) are due to take place on 27-30 December at Middlesex University in Palmers Green. All League players are eligible to enter, and there are several events being run, with prize money for the winners. For further details and an entry form, please call Alan Shepherd on 020 8441 5775.
there are ongoing efforts to improve the table tennis area for the future.
Enquiries about this newsletter should be made to: / Steve LevenTel: (020) 8864 8749
Wembley & Harrow Table Tennis League
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