Club’s smashing work developing sport recognised with pivotal role
HALTON Table Tennis Club has been chosen to play a key part in the development of elite table tennis athletes of the future.
Table Tennis England, the sport’s National Governing Body, has announced that the club in Widnes is to join its national network of Talent Development Centres.
It is the first club in the North West to join the network, which has eight other centres in Plymouth, Nottingham, Harlow, Middlesbrough, Bristol, Pontefract and two in London.
Based at the Select Security Stadium, Halton was founded in 1999 and has almost 500 members.
The head coach is former England international and Commonwealth Games silver medallist Andrew Rushton.
Table Tennis England’s talent pathway manager, Marcus Gustafson, said: “Halton are an established club, very well run and with good facilities which are available almost all the time.
“They have a very strong head coach and for me that was the deciding factor. It’s a plus that we now have a TDC in the North West.
“It’s adding more opportunities for table tennis in England to develop more players and give them a good table tennis education from a young age.
“The big hope is that each TDC will produce such high level players that many will fit into the England Youth Squad and that they will come up to the level of winning medals at the European Youth Championships.
“The potential definitely exists but we need to train more than we do in general, because that’s what other countries are doing.”
Halton chairman, Karen Tonge, said: “This is an exciting development involving the club with Table Tennis England in partnership with Halton Borough Council and local schools.
“Building on the legacy of the London and Rio Olympics it will enable local young people to have the opportunity to reach national level.
“Already we have Jack Hunter-Spivey from the Halton Table Tennis Club as number seven in the world and playing in the Rio Paralympics.
“We hope we can provide a pathway through participation, development and performance programmes giving even more children aged 10-14 a chance to play table tennis in the area and hopefully on to England representation.”
Halton Borough Council’s executive board member for sport, Cllr Phil Harris, said: “On behalf of Halton Borough Council, I am delighted to hear that Halton Table Tennis Club has been awarded Talent Development Centre status by Table Tennis England.
“I hope it continues to encourage as many people as possible to participate in this exciting sport.”