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School connections
‘ You’ ve got to have good, regular contact with local schools,’ explained Doug Fern, Club Secretary at the popular Leeds Judean club.
‘ If you get into schools regularly though, like we do with the Grammar School at Leeds, with trained coaches who can point out good local clubs to join for increased development, you can attract a fair few youngsters. Then, as long as you’ ve got access to a good coach, they’ ll have a reason to keep coming back.
‘ For example we’ ve had a boy here, Shayan Siraj, who went to Leeds Grammar and came to train here. He’ s now just started at Ackworth School, the new National Talent Academy and part of the network of Talent Development Centres( TDC). I’ m sure the success he’ s had is partly down to regular access to coaching and tables at our club and others locally.’
One of those other local clubs is Pudsey TTC which, with two teams at every level of the Leeds League, as well as entry into the National Cadet League and Senior British League, is not short of options for their players.
For Max Tuma, one of Pudsey’ s juniors, it’ s access to the sport at school level that has to be focused on.
‘ What table tennis needs to do is get into school more regularly: do taster sessions, get kids to try it with coaches there to help. That’ s how I first started the game, through my primary school,’ the 15 – year – old explained.
Cultivating talent
‘ From a coach’ s perspective, those early primary school sessions are really interesting,’ pointed out one of Tuma’ s coaches at Pudsey, Granville Thornton.
‘ You start out making it as fun as possible but, as a coach, you begin to see the kids who have got good natural coordination. You can then work a bit more closely with those and see if they’ ve got the determination to put in the practice. Then, because of the set-up we’ ve got here, we can invite the most interested ones down to our sessions.’
Peter Thompson, a Level 4 coach and Secretary of Pudsey TTC, agreed and argued that the way Pudsey has developed makes its success almost inevitable.