Table Tennis England The Winning Edge Issue 7 | Page 8

THE
WINNING EDGE
INNOVATE TO
A coach’s job doesn’t have to end with training the players in front you.
The following pages are packed with examples and ideas of going beyond
the club scene to find a new crowd, and a new challenge.
DECAMPING
TO DECATHLON
A
s the success of Ping! has shown, table
tennis is a brilliant sport to introduce to an
unsuspecting general public.
While that project is often separate to local
coaches and clubs, the idea of transporting the sport
to a ‘real world’ environment is one Bolton TTC has ran
with.
“Our head coach, Andrea Holt, got funding for me to do
free coaching outside of our normal sessions, to grow table
tennis in Bolton and grow the club,” explained Sam Evans,
one of the club’s coaches.
“The problem with club nights is that, for some people,
they have that stigma of it being a place for ‘training’,
which can put casual players off.”
So how do you run a table tennis session without a sports
or school hall and with no players booked in
to play?
UV TABLE TENNIS
Another of Bolton TTC’s successful alternative sessions has been
UV table tennis, set-up in conjunction with the local university.
The plan? Set the hall up with UV (ultraviolet) bulbs, turn off all
other non-essential lighting and play in the glow!
“We already had a relationship with the manager of our
local Decathlon sports shop, which has a table tennis
section and was clearly going to be good place to meet
the public. It might not be as bustling as somewhere like a
marketplace but it had all the equipment we needed, bar
the robot, so we didn’t have transport or material costs to
worry about.
“We let people come over who were walking around, or if
it was quiet we’d walk around and speak to shoppers. We
also set up a robot challenge, with Decathlon vouchers as
a prize.”
That incentive, which was a plan formed in tandem with
the store manager, and the busy location kept a steady
stream of participants coming through, with 15 regular
players six weeks after they’d first set up.
VIDEO
It was also a positive experience for Sam as a coach, and
one he’d recommend to any club coaches looking to
expand their skillset.
“It allows you to not take yourself too seriously. To just be
professional and accept the diversity that’s out there in the
public. Use your experience as a coach to be flexible with
the different kinds of people: you certainly can’t just coach
as you would with regular club players.”
WE