My Sporting Life

So most of my memorable sporting moments revolve around my chosen sport (NO it isn't called Ping Pong any longer - except in Germany I think?) except for a memorable 9 holes of golf at Royal Liverpool.

Table tennis originated in England at the end of the 19th Century as an upper class pastime before slowly spreading around the globe to become the world's largest participation sport.

The first records of the game come from the early 1880s, when British army officers in India and South Africa used lids from cigar boxes as paddles and rounded corks from wine bottles as balls. It soon found its way back to England where James Gibb, the founder of the English game, had returned from the United States with some hollow celluloid balls, began playing indoor tennis at the turn of the century. The new game adopted a variety of names before "ping pong" - after the sound of the paddle hitting the ball - took hold. James Gibb, a long distance runner and founder of the James Gibb and Co. Engineering Firm in the early 19th century is said to have given the name to Jack Jaques who then patented and sold the idea as 'ping-pong'.

The game was originally played as a parlour game, often called 'Whiff Whaff' using vellum rackets like drums with handles one foot long. The Ping Pong Association was founded in 1902 but the game was never taken seriously and seemed destined for national death. Attempts to revolutionise the game by changing its techniques were discouraged by some of its founders. Difficulty also arose because the name 'ping-pong' was a registered trade name and thus the control of the game was in the hand of manufacturers of equipment.

In 1925 more progressive officials realised that the name 'ping-pong' was a handicap which the game would never live down. Thus, the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA) was founded and the Ping Pong Association faded away. The International Table Tennis Federation followed in 1926.

By 1956, ETTA, sole arbitrators of Table Tennis in England had 260 leagues, 8000 clubs and 200 000 affiliated players and had taken the lead in world table tennis, embracing over 50 affiliated countries. This encouraged both European and World Table Tennis competition

English sporting goods manufacturers J. Jaques & Son Ltd registered the name in 1901, the year before E.C. Goode made the significant advance of covering his bat in rubber to impart spin on the ball.

Cutting to the chase, my sport has always been Table Tennis - so this might tend to put some of you off!!

HOWEVER - I have always been a reasonable "ball player" (good hand/eye co-ordination brought on by playing footy as a goalkeeper on the Bongs as a lad) and partook of many other ball sports over the years. Football (as a younger lad); squash, cricket, tennis (the big racket one on a BIG green patch!), golf (which I think I should have been good at if I'd stuck at it) and badminton (I know, it isn't a ball - but it still has a racket.........).

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