Why do the Brits suck at Table Tennis when they invented it

Its also so funny that the Chinese invented gun powder, ice cream, pasta and pizza, but only for other countries to perfect it even more
I guess, that's life and human evolution, that clearly the OP is unaware of.

Why is OP so stupid, why??

I have hesitated to chime in on what may be among the most moronic threads ever seen on TT forums. But here is the answer.

When sports receive massive subsidies from governments at local or even national levels, they are far more likely to produce great players. And the UK has never done that for TT, and other countries have (most significantly China, but even Germany) or did at one time (Hungary, former Yugoslavia). This is certainly true for basketball in the US (every school has teams from about age 12 on, with coaches that are paid by the school systems).

So now as a case study, notice what happened to table tennis in Hungary after those subsidies stopped (after 1989). Hungary now has exactly ONE player in the world top 150 (compared to four for UK). Viktor Barna must be rolling over in his grave.

Why Germany? There are clubs everywhere. They receive local subsidies that keep them open (part of a German effort to provide all sorts of organized amateur sports to keep their population healthy and happy). A lot of them play in school gymnasiums after hours on really nice tables in really nice conditions. Some of this was created long ago (19th century) during something called the turnverein movement (you can look it up). Last time I was there I just looked up on the internet for tischtennis in the medium sized city I was going to be in for work. Found about 20 clubs in about 2 minutes of web searching. Most didn't play every night but there was a place to play within about 5-10 min walk from my hotel every single night (I didn't play every night) and some places didn't allow open play at certain times because they were having league matches that night, some for quite young kids. Nevertheless I got to play as much as I wanted to and found reasonably good players at each place who were very welcoming. It was awesome. I've never tried to find a coach there. It would be easy I'm sure.

England has 30k hobby players

I know that the OP is trolling but I'll bite.
First of all, OP is probably talking more about England than UK as TT is tiny to non-existent in Wales and Scotland.
I could list about 20 reasons but will focus primarily on player numbers.
There are about 30k regular players in England. Of that total less than 2000 will play a national event in any one year. Of that 2000, less than 500 play more than 4 events in any one year. There are no clubs in UK that can compare in size or general resources of the big clubs in Sweden, Germany, France or even the USA.
So 4 players in the top WR250 from a pool of about 15 pro/semi-pro players? England has done quite well considering.

NDH said:

More troll food?

You can't be talking about the BRONZE medal winning British team at the last World Championships can you??

Anyway, perhaps you suck, but I can assure you the people I play with don't

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Excellent avatar !!

In fact TT has been invented in England with the initial aim to occupy the women while the Lords were playing cards, smoking cigars and drinking their whisky. It was not for the plebs, and in some aspects its still not.
The modern face of TT was reinvented in US and soon was welcomed in China.
The plebs sport in England is soccer. Every match is a good motive with a good ground for the crowd to get drunk and to initiate a good fight. And the English fans are the best in the world in this, even when they are visiting other countries. And it really sucks.

Tinykin said:

I know that the OP is trolling but I'll bite.
First of all, OP is probably talking more about England than UK as TT is tiny to non-existent in Wales and Scotland.
I could list about 20 reasons but will focus primarily on player numbers.
There are about 30k regular players in England. Of that total less than 2000 will play a national event in any one year. Of that 2000, less than 500 play more than 4 events in any one year. There are no clubs in UK that can compare in size or general resources of the big clubs in Sweden, Germany, France or even the USA.
So 4 players in the top WR250 from a pool of about 15 pro/semi-pro players? England has done quite well considering.

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Certainly not tiny to non existent in Wales and Scotland. They have small populations and play it as much as most similar sized regions in England. Wales even have a female player in the top 100 WR and the minicadet European champion.

Tony's Table Tennis said:

Why is OP so stupid, why??

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A troll is an ass who posts off topic while personally insulting people at the same time. Usually with it being rather unwarranted. I can't think of a better definition. Can you?




Regarding the OP question: Brits don't really have the 'old ways' anymore. The 'old ways' is kind of like the chinese system, where you see what a person has a proclivity for and then you train them in that and only that so they become a master. Or even without a proclivity really. You see the stories of all the chinese greats like FZD etc. Basically their parents decided for them to do it and then they started training daily.
Once upon a time there wasn't really a school system etc, and this is what people did. You went to learn a trade that was at least somewhat lucrative if you're good at it, and the system made sure you'll be good at it.

So in China for example, it's lucrative (it being the national sport with a big market for equipment, endorsements, positions as group or personal trainer etc) while in the UK it's not as lucrative.

And in China they use 'the old system' of training a dude from the age of like 3-5 to do one thing best while in the UK you have school work etc, both by law and because it's not considered very likely that this will be worthwhile for the kid in the long run, and that better he has an education so he could get a 'real job' etc.
And by the time the kid is a self determining adult it's already way too late to get anywhere near those selected for mastery at the age of 3 and trained by previous generations of same.

Still, you have one-offs like Pitchford every now and then, which are deservedly praised, but you can see they're one-offs.

Do not feed the troll.

yogi_bear said:

Do not feed the troll.

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many 2017 threads resurrected by same user...hmmm

Paul Drinkhall has a lot of skill. He seems to have difficulty managing close games at the end. Otherwise I think his world ranking would jump up 10-20 higher.

starkcasey said:

soccer was also invented by them, whats your opinion about that?

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Sorry guys. It seems you guys have been fooled over and over again. This is a spammer and may be a bot. Starkcasey has necromanced several old threads and nobody has noticed. And as soon as he/she/it was able to post links, it was posting links to body building, fitness sites. The links were contained in words of quotes from others. As though he didn't make the link.

So many of you responded to these threads as though they were live and not old dead threads. Kind of entertaining. You guys need to look at the dates of posts and threads better. Also, when comments do not fit the context of a thread, it is a giveaway.

Yeah, but it is a fun thread. Are these guys expert in psychology?