History

TopSpin Table Tennis Club

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Did you know that:

• Fred Perry was the Worlds Men's Singles Table Tennis Champion in 1928-29  long before he achieved even greater fame at Wimbledon.
• No other sport requires faster reactions and more delicate muscular co-ordination than Table Tennis.
• Table Tennis played an important role in international diplomacy when an American team on tour in Europe after the 1971 World Championships were invited to China for a friendly match. This gave rise to the term 'Ping Pong Diplomacy' and was instrumental in bringing about an end to the cold war that existed between these two super powers for decades.
• The game of Table Tennis has it's origins in Victorian England, descending along with tennis and badminton from the ancient medieval game of tennis.
  
• The game was popular in Central Europe in 1905-10, and even before this a modified version had been introduced to Japan, where it later spread to China and Korea.
• Over the last  80 years table tennis has developed into a major worldwide sport, played by some thirty million competitive players and by unaccountable millions who play less seriously.
• Table tennis was first recognised and accepted as an olympic sport in the 1988 games held in Korea and it featured in the first Youth Olympic Games in 2010.
• Modern table tennis at national and international levels is one of the fastest ball sports on the planet demanding the highest level of  physical fitness and mental concentration. Ball speeds up to 100km/hour are commonplace.