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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 .