New London TT facility

schumi2 · Sep 30, 2011

The brand new TT facility at the Morpeth (London) Community Table Tennis Club, Portman Place, Bethnal Green, opened last night. This is really of the highest quality for playing the game. New tables and brilliant lighting and floor all in a brand new building just completed. Run by Grant Solder with help from John Mansfield and their team, one could not wish for a better place. Matthew Syed got held up in a traffic jam but when he eventually arrived gave a demonstration with Gavin Rumgay (Scottish No. 1 and England No. 3) which had all the yougsters on their feet and then Gavin went on to give Joe Kennedy a game which of course brought out the small, medium and large frying pans (non stick may I add) and this was highly entertaining. In attendance were Joel Brookfield of Sport England Local Government Relationship Manager, Alex Murdoch Chairman of the ETTA and of course the Head Teacher of Morpeth School Sir Alasdair Macdonald. Provisional opening times at present are on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 9.30pm and on a Saturday 10am to 2pm. These times will be reviewed at a later date.

Obviously being a complete new venture, changes may well take place when the dust settles.

Dan · Sep 30, 2011

schumi2 said:
The brand new TT facility at the Morpeth (London) Community Tabnle Ternnis Club, Portman Place, Bethnal Green, opened last night. This is really of the highest quality for playing the game. New tables and brilliant lighting and floor all in a brand new building just completed. Run by Grant Solder with help from John Mansfield and their team, one could not wish for a better place. Matthew Syed got held up in a traffic jam but when he eventually arrived gave a demonstration with Gavin Rumgay (Scottish No. 1 and England No. 3) which had all the yougsters on their feet and then Gavin went on to give Joe Kennedy a game which of course brought out the small, medium and large frying pans (non stick may I add) and this was highly entertaining. In attendance were Joel Brookfield of Sport England Local Government Relationship Manager, Alex Murdoch Chairman of the ETTA and of course the Head Teacher of Morpeth School Sir Alasdair Macdonald. Provisional opening times at present are on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 9.30pm and on a Saturday 10am to 2pm. These times will be reviewed at a later date.

Obviously being a complete new venture, changes may well take place when the dust settles.

Awesome stuff!

Gavin told me about this, sounds really good and promising! Any photos you got of the place please post them up

I will probably attend one day soon

tuckersonthemove · Oct 1, 2011

This is exciting news! Look forward to getting back off my travels next may and coming down to have a look. Still Fusion through and through, though!

schumi2 · Oct 1, 2011

I normally take my video recorder but for some unknown reason I never this time but there was a video taken of the whole event by BBC Asia. I was talking to Grant last night and he said hopefully it will eventually be put on somewhere so I will do what I can to get it on here when I find out more about it.

Dan · Oct 1, 2011

Awesome stuff! I look forward to it. Sounds like big promotion if bbc asia were there?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using tapatalk

Der_Echte · Oct 2, 2011

That is Big Time.

YosuaYosan · Oct 2, 2011

Great stuff

TT also need to grow abundantly on where it was born (assuming TT is from Great Britain

)

Mr. RicharD · Oct 2, 2011

TT as in the Name of "Table Tennis" definitely came from Britain, but was bought by the Parker Brothers later on. Whiff Whaff was the more common used name for TT back then which is why it was sold so easily. Boy did that guy kick himself after the huge growth. As for the facility I'm sad to hear that it's not open as much as it needs to be to train players to be better. The whole 3 hour club play is a huge mistake on Europe and the U.S.' part in training. If you can't get it open at least 12 hours a day it's a huge waste of potential.

schumi2 · Oct 2, 2011

Mr. RicharD said:
TT as in the Name of "Table Tennis" definitely came from Britain, but was bought by the Parker Brothers later on. Whiff Whaff was the more common used name for TT back then which is why it was sold so easily. Boy did that guy kick himself after the huge growth. As for the facility I'm sad to hear that it's not open as much as it needs to be to train players to be better. The whole 3 hour club play is a huge mistake on Europe and the U.S.' part in training. If you can't get it open at least 12 hours a day it's a huge waste of potential.

I think you are forgetting this is a school and not a sports complex and is used by the school during the day. Being new, changes may well take place with increased hours but they can not employ people to be there for that amount of time plus the number of members will not be known for some time yet but will obviously increase as time goes by as people get to know about the place. The 3 hour time is about normal for a club to be open. I know of sports complex's that are open all day but nothing goes on in the TT game until the evening so I do not think its a mistake and all players should be grateful (and are) to have this facility to join if they want to.

Belisar · Oct 3, 2011

As much as I am sure the Morpeth club would like to be open longer hours in order to maximise the available playing time there are two factors to consider.

Firstly Schumi2 is right in that during the day the facility is used by the host school. There was joint funding with the Sport England/ETTA part ensuring that the facility could be used outside of school hours as a community table tennis club. This was also part of a multi-million pound school re-building project so the hall will be used during school hours by the students (the good news is there will continue to be plenty of table tennis there in school hours).

The second issue at the moment is the lack of volunteers to run the club for extended periods. Ideally it would be a 7 day a week club but there is still building work on other parts of the site and at present it seems less than 5 volunteers to be there for the sessions. Hopefully as it grows this latter issue will change for the better.

Estimates are that over 200 people were there on the night, not a bad turn out at all and from the look of the standards of people either I knew or saw 'knocking' the standard could be pretty good.

DHS · Oct 4, 2011

I went there on Saturday, 01/10/11 but gates were locked.

Belisar · Oct 4, 2011

All begins this week.

Tonight was the first night. Good standard of play, not too many players at the moment. From what I heard Wednesday could be a quite competitive.

unclesam · Oct 4, 2011

there's no information about the club. I have been there today b4 8h30 pm but the gates were locked too!?

schumi2 · Oct 5, 2011

Quite strange that Belisar appears to have been there and it was open. Not quite sure what time you are quoting unclesam that you got there but if b4 means 4 oclock it should have been open anyway due to all the school kids going home but not for TT as that starts at 6pm. Belisar will probably reply to you on this one and may be able to explain. I was even tempted to go myself but had a league match at the last minute. Presume you went to the right place as last week I ended up at the wrong school at first.

DHS · Oct 5, 2011

Anyway a friend of mine just called to let me know he managed to get in yesterday. He did not use the main entrance on Portman Place. He said there is another entrance at the back of the school where all the construction work is going on. Will be going this Saturday!!!!

Belisar · Oct 5, 2011

Was open for sure yesterday. Had 10 people present and the standard was very high.

Use the Portman Place entrance as the whole school is still a building site. There should be someone at the front gate directing people in.

Otherwise as you face the school front door turn left, follow the front of the building along and then turn right down the side of it. Look for some arrows (black on a yellow background and I think they say table tennis) directing the way. Do not enter the building site but there is a small walkway which runs down the very side of the main building.

Unclesam I will pm you my mobile number - if you pop by again and have trouble give me a call. If I am in there I can come out and if not I will do my best to direct you.

unclesam · Oct 5, 2011

thanks very much guys. I'll come down again some time this week.

Ian · Oct 6, 2011

Think I might give this place a visit next week, seeing as my current club recently changed premises and it's now a joke.

Belisar · Oct 6, 2011

I am told 16 players last night. Range of standards and range of ages.

Ian · Oct 28, 2011

Went down to this club last night with a couple of fellow pongers. It's an awesome facility, eveything was top quality. I'm so used to playing in dingy light it took me a little while to get used to the brightness! Very reasonable rates as well, I'll definitely be joining as a member.

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