Sunderland and District Table Tennis Association

This is a competition organised by the ETTA, where the ten regions in England compete as teams with each other to find the strongest squad, and at the same time allow the best players in each region, to compete with each other, on an 'age by age' basis.

Each squad is made up of two players in each age category ie, under 10s, under 12s under 14s and under 17s for both girls and boys, so that 16 sets are played by each team in every match in a competition which is held throughout the day.

Graeme playing for the second year in succession in the under 10s, greatly improved on his good performance of last year, by winning four of the five sets he played.

Against Yorkshire he won three games to nil in the best of five games; against East Midlands he won three games to nil and against South East won he three games to nil. Against South West he won three games to nil and against Southern he lost nil games to three.

The Northern region results also improved as they moved up from 10th position to 8th overall position which was commendable as the Northern squad were unable to field two girls (due to travelling difficulties), and therefore the team were two sets down, in each match which they played, throughout this competition.

The English Schools Table Tennis Association Individual Championships, which were also held at Stoke on the Saturday.

For the first time for a number of years, players representing Tyne and Wear competed in the prestigious ESTTA Individual Championships. This was only possible due to the efforts of various officers of the Northumbria and Sunderland and District Table Tennis Associations, in raising the funds out of their own very small development budgets, so as to join the ESTTA (as no money appeared to be available from the various local authorities), as well as providing other facilities for team selection etc., with some of the local schools, players, and parents contributing to the individual costs of entry and travelling to the venue, which is the major schools event each year for table tennis, in the player's individual calendar. When one sees how much money is going into some sports and other good causes, it is a natural concern that no money appears to be available from any of the local authorities in the area, to help these young players go to their major schools championship. Table tennis is an international sport where players from both genders, ability, age and is also freely open to disabled players, and therefore they compete with each other in open competition. It is a sport that always operates on a 'low income budget', and these leading young players together with their coaches, also help with the development of other young players throughout the area.

Unfortunately we were unable to select any girl players this year, in any of the age groups, but perhaps some may be available for next year's championships.

All four players played very well and the results were as follows:

Anthony Barella (Seaburn Dene Primary School), (won three out of five) and came third out of six in his group, and just failed to progress to the next round of the competition in the under 11 boys. Philip Dixon (Sunderland High School), (won four out of five) and came second in his group and progressed to the knockout stage of the competition, where he lost nil to three to the highly ranked Ben Barlow (ranked 20 in the ETTA cadet national rankings) to go out of the competition in the under 13 boys. David Unsworth (Monkwearmouth School), (won three out of five) and came third out of six in his group, and therefore just failed to progress to the next round of the competition in the under 16 boys. Kevin Wilson (South Tyneside College), won his group and progressed to the last 16 of the knockout competition, before losing to Peter Cleminson (ranked 11 in the ETTA junior national rankings) in the fifth and final game 9/11 in the under 19 boys