2012 Winter Interclub Draw and Rules

Hot off the press the draw and rules are now available below. Enjoy the competition!

Information & Rules: TTW 2012 Winter Interclub Rules

Premier 1: Premier 1 draw
Premier 2: Premier 2 draw
Premier 3: Premier 3 draw
Premier 4: Premier 4 draw

Timetable

May 15 Premier 1 & 3 grades commence (Tuesdays)
May 16 Premier 2 & 4 grades commence (Wednesdays)
May 30/5 Junior Grade Commences
June 28 – July 16 School holidays (no interclub play, Junior Nationals)
July 17 Premier 1 & 3 grades continue
July 18 Premier 2 & 4 and Junior grades continue
Sept 4 Grade champs for Premier grades (1st vs. 2nd teams in each grade)

Remember Junior Interclub dates per above.

Tournament

Also remember the Wellington Autumn Open – May 19/20 – entries close May 15!

Brian Hearfield – Technical/Te Rama Stalwart

This is the latest player profile from Malcolm Wong:

Brian Hearfield in 2011

In 1950 Brian (then 15 years old) joined the Technical Table Tennis Club in Wellington. There were 2 tables in the Technical Old Students Tennis Pavilion in Taranaki Street, which is today occupied by Massey University. On Sundays Brian would often play from noon to late at night. He recalled that players had to prove they were a certain standard to join the club. There was a limit on the membership and good players were asked to join the club, rather than the other way around.

The Technical Club was formed in 1936. The Club has won 32 Wellington interclub titles including 6 A Grade (1939-41, 1943-44 & 1946). The A Grade team included Frank Mooney, Wellington’s top ranked man (1943) who was also a wicket keeper in the NZ Cricket Team (1949-54). The W M Jackson Shield (Most interclub points) was won twice (1946 & 1977). The Sportswear Model Trophy (Highest point average for 3 nominated teams from a club) was won 6 times (1974, 1977, 1981, 1987, 1989 & 1990). The most interclub teams entered were 11 in 1971 & 1977.

Club members were involved in several notable achievements. Max Gosling was selected for the first ever NZ Team in a match against the touring Hungarian Team (1938). Eric Boniface was selected for the first NZ Team to travel overseas (1939). The team travelled to Australia for matches against state teams. John Crossley and John Stewart were in the first NZ Team at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary (1950). Crossley won the first international title by a New Zealander when he won the Scottish Open Men’s Singles held in Edinburgh (1950). Gosling (1939), Boniface (1940-41) and Crossley (1944) were ranked Number 1 in Wellington and all won the Wellington Open Men’s Singles. Crossley was North Island Men’s Singles Champion (1949).

29 New Zealand Open Titles were won. The first was achieved in 1940 when Dawn Croxton won the Women’s Doubles with Leonie Kennedy, and the Mixed Doubles with Max Gosling. This was the first year of the NZ Inter-Association Teams Championships and Wellington won both the Men’s and Women Teams Title. Club members representing Wellington were Max Gosling and Eric Boniface (Men) and Leonie Kennedy, Dawn Croxton and May Wareham (Women).

In 1950 Club members were in all 5 NZ Open individual finals. John Crossley lost to Bob Jackson (Auckland) in the Men’s Singles. John won the Men’s Doubles with Neville Brightwell (Canterbury). Margaret Hoar won the Women Singles, Woman Doubles with Thyra McGregor, and the Mixed Doubles with Owen Jaine (Auckland). As well, Murray Dunn won the NZ Under 16 Boys Singles that year. Murray was to win a record 9 Wellington Open Men’s Singles and also 4 NZ Men’s Singles (1960-63).

Margaret Hoar was the number 1 ranked Wellington and NZ Woman (1949-50) when she was at the Club. She was the Wellington, North Island and NZ Women’s Singles Champion in those years. Christine Beasley (nee McGregor) was the number 1 ranked Women for 7 consecutive years (1973-79) and won 10 Wellington Open titles including 5 Women’s Singles (1973-74, 1976-78). She was also an excellent tennis player and won the Wellington Tennis Open Women Singles (1979), achieving a unique tennis/table tennis double.

In 1967 the club moved to the Te Rama Tennis Pavilion in Kilbirnie when the Technical Tennis Pavilion had to make way for new buildings. In 1972 the club changed its name to Te Rama to meet city council requirements to stay at the site as the tennis club had folded up. In 1984 the club moved to the Kilbirnie Gym due to the Aqua Centre being built where the Tennis Pavilion was. In 1985 the club moved to St Giles Church Hall and later to the Newtown Stadium. A team was last entered in interclub in 2001.

Brian Hearfield started off in F Grade and was in C Grade the following year. He played mainly in B grade. He recalls filling in at A Grade interclub and playing Murray Dunn, Geoff Jennings, John Crossley, Ron Foster and Ivan Houghton. In 1956 at the Hutt Valley Open, Brian and Bill Stewart (both C Graders) upset Mike Beder/Stan Ferguson ( NZ Boys Doubles Champions 1955) to reach the quarter finals where they lost to the top seeds, Murray Dunn/John Crossley (NZ Men’s Doubles Champions 1954). Brian has been in 9 Technical/Te Rama winning winter interclub teams (See below).

A Reserve A Grade 1963 Brian Hearfield, Foon Chin, Thyra McGregor

B Grade 1966 Brian Hearfield, Jack Ngan, Diane Bates
1974 Brian Hearfield, Ray Bryan, Dawn Perks, Judy Sharman
1977 Brian Hearfield, D Hitchcock, Roger Watkin
1989 Brian Hearfield, Henry Anastasi, Malcolm Wong
1990 Brian Hearfield, Roger Watkin, Peter Wong
1993 Brian Hearfield, David Feist, Roger Watkin, Giles Moiser

C Grade 1959 Brian Hearfield, John Wilcox, Andy Curran
1986 Brian Hearfield. Malcolm Wong, Jeff Larsen, Olaf Leijon

Brian had the highest interclub average in B Grade (1990, 1991 & 1993). His best result was 37 wins from 39 matches (94.9%) in the B Grade (1985, 1990). He won the B Grade Singles (1966) and the B Grade Doubles with David Fry (1965) and Bruce Mills (1966). Brian represented Wellington in the annual match against Hutt Valley 7 times. C Grade (1959), B Grade (1965, 1966, 1974, 1989, 1990) and B/C Grade (1993). Wins were achieved in 1959 (7-5) 1965 (10-2) 1966 (9-3). He donated the Brian Hearfield Cup for the B Grade Singles at the Wellington Grade Championships. The first winner was fellow club member Henry Anastasi in 1989.

Brian has been Secretary, Treasurer and Club Captain for the Club. He served on the Wellington Committee (1962-77) and (1992-2009). He was a long serving member of the interclub subcommittee and chaired it when there were 167 interclub teams. Brian was the Secretary/Treasurer (1999-2001) and Secretary (2002-2009). He was a regular sight on night duty at interclub. Brian is a Life Member of the Te Rama Club (1980) and the Wellington Association (1994).

Brian played cricket for Institute Old Boys, Wellington South Institute, Technical College Old Boys and Onslow. His 1971-72 Onslow team included Trevor Mallard (Labour Member of Parliament since 1984 and former Minister (1999-2008). He was a batsman/wicket keeper with a highest score of 85 not out. Brian was in three winning teams: Technical College Old Boys 3B (1958/59); Technical College Old Boys 5th Grade (1960/61); and Onslow 3C (1972/73). The Onslow 3C Team also included a young Kevin Haines, the current TTW Treasurer.

Wellington Table Tennis Association AGM (1997)
Brian Hearfield (Life Member and Committee), Paul Escott (Life Member and President), Malcolm Wong (Secretary/Treasurer) and Eric Tindill (Life Member, The first Treasurer 1933, Double All Black)

Te Rama Club Championship (1999)
Martin Young, Roger Watkin, Brian Hearfield, Malcolm Wong, John Lister and David Robinson.

- Malcolm Wong

Summer Interclub Draw

Hi folks, after the usual late rush of entries and fiddling to get seedings near-enough, here are the actual draws for Summer Interclub from Wednesday February 29 through April 4. Thanks to Bruce for getting it all together.

Grades A and B are split into two sections with a playoff between them on the last night. Grade C has a 1v2, 3v4, 5v6 playoff on that last night.

2012 TTW Summer Interclub draw A Grade
2012 TTW Summer Interclub draw B Grade
2012 TTW Summer Interclub draw C Grade

Refer to the earlier 2012 Summer Team Interclub blog entry for more details.

See you all Wednesday at the Empire Table Tennis Club stadium.

Opening night at Empire? (This could be Petone...)

Summer Table Tennis – where to get it?

As an overview on what table tennis is on and when during the summer period here is some information. (If you have any info to add please comment or let me know.)

Summer Interclub

Summer interclub (team competition, a bit more casual than the main winter interclub season) is broken into two distinct (unrelated) phases, first the Composite Interclub (see here and here). Second the ‘pre-season’ (late summer) summer interclub round with a format to be determined. For more details watch this blog or keep in contact through your club.

Your club

Some clubs remain open with a small break, others close for a summer break. Consider visiting a different club every now and again – chances are you’ll play people you’ve never played before.

• Waterloo: starts again early March (probably the first week).
• Onslow: starts again late March.
• Tawa: will start up again at Tawa Intermediate School probably on Thursday, 5 April 2012.
• Titan: open through the summer except for 4 weeks off from mid December. Key hire for the Newtown stadium is available too, contact Table Tennis Wellington.
• Belmont: running until the 25th of November and is starting up again in the middle of March.
• Karori: finishes November 21, starting again late February or early March, to be determined.
• Empire: The the last Monday night is Dec 12, the last midweek – Tuesday Dec 20 then opening casually from Jan 17 (officially Feb 2), and the last Junior club is Friday Nov 11. Opening dates for Mondays & Fridays to be determined.
• Moonshine & Victoria University: – refer to club contact information here.

For more details or for other clubs refer to the club contact information here.

Exercise

Summer is a good time to start and get into a regular fitness pattern, if you find one that fits your schedule and you can enjoy it, then you’ll be more likely to keep it up through the whole year (um, this is do as I say, not as I do). I remember talking to a veteran player who noted that he would tend to win more often as the winter wore on, as other people got less fit! A fair-weather runner like myself will be one of his easy victims come Composite Interclub…

Elite squad coach Stephen Hirst recommends:
“… it is always good in the off season to build your base fitness, i.e. lots and lots of cardio, skipping, running running and more running. As you get about 2 months out before the season starts I liked to taper off the running and start to replace that with more speed work like shuttle runs between two cones 20 metres apart. Start introducing more strength stuff with weights like squats for your quads. My favourite was jumping over a wooden bench traditionally found in schools 3 x 1 minute, it really kills you but gets you very explosive for the start of the season. Also continue this exercise throughout the season… This is all I used to do and can highly recommend it.”

My tip: paint the fence – if it worked for The Karate Kid it will work for you.
At least get out there and mow the lawn…

Helping

There are probably a hundred unpaid volunteers of some kind that help run and facilitate table tennis in the Wellington region. If you’re not already one of this bunch, think of something you enjoy doing that could contribute in any way. Put your name forward!

Web watching

Need a quick table tennis fix? Trawl the web looking for table tennis news, blogs and videos, but start with Win Ngyuen’s youtube channel and Matt Heatherington’s TT blog.

Your mate’s house

There is probably a table tennis table at one of your friend’s houses – go there and play and give them a lesson. Nothing will give you more pleasure. Just don’t forget to bring your own bat otherwise you’ll be battling to a 15-all deuce in the 3rd set against their 11 year old son because trying to topspin using their pimple-out no-sponge half-torn up left-in-the-sun fly-swatter only leaves you looping directly into the carpet at your feet.

The ulterior motive is that you could have some more people to bring along to your club. Lend them your real bat or a spare and open their eyes to what it is all about.

Summer project?

You might not have space for a table-tennis table in your own house but…

make a mini table tennis table… then become the best in the world.

More?

Other ideas? Just comment below!

Onslow Club Update

The Onslow Table tennis Club’s 2011 Championships concluded recently. The finals night saw some new names on the Club’s honour list following some upsets.

The evening started with the semi finals of the men’s singles. In the first, Jim Pandelidis, playing as though the net was 2 cm above the table, smashed top seed Malcolm Wong out of the game winning 4 sets to 2. Try as he might Malcolm simply had no answer to Jim’s attack. In the other semi, second seed Mat Hobbs and Bob Bell arm wrestled for 7 sets before Bob won the decider.

In the final, Bob Bell having learned from the semi, managed to keep Jim from attacking with well placed and aggressive pushes and took out the title 4 sets to 2.

Diane Taylor beat Michelle Kan 4-0 in the women’s final. Diane now has a history of 56 Onslow open titles, including an amazing 25 singles titles.

In the men’s doubles, Malcom and Mat got some consolation beating Bob Bell and Paul Escott, while Jim Pandelidis and Diane Taylor beat Virgil and Michelle Kan in the mixed doubles final.

In the Over 40s final played the previous week, Mat retained his title from last year to beat Malcolm 3-1.

Adam Slocombe beat Mats Olsthoorn 3-0 in the junior boys singles. In the doubles Adam & Jacob beat Mats & Axel 3-2 in a close 5-setter.

In the Junior Club, Rhune Pettitt and Kimberley Kan won singles events and Adam Slocome
and Daniel Phillips the doubles title.

-Kevin Haines

---

Also on Onslow, Malcolm Wong wrote up some of the history of the Onslow club after the slideshow below.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

End of an Era at Onslow Table Tennis Club [almost!]

Paul Escott and Kevin Haines have a combined Onslow membership of 100 years. These two very long serving committee members, with over 90 years committee service between them, have retired from the nightly running of the senior and junior nights at the end of the 2010 season. They are still on the Onslow Committee.

The Onslow Club was formed in 1934 and meets at the Ngaio Town Hall (since 1936) on Thursday nights and junior night on Friday. Gerald Bell won the club’s first NZ Title when he won the Men’s Doubles (1935) with Hec Pyle. Marie Tracey won the NZ Women Singles (1945) and her brother, Peter Tracey won the NZ U16 Boy’s Singles (1946). Audrey Hughes was the star, winning the NZ Women Singles (1947), Doubles (1948) with A Knight and Mixed Doubles (1948) with Russ Algie. She also won 3 NZ U18 Girls Singles (1945-47) and 2 NZ U16 Girls Singles (1945-46). Val White won the NZ Women Doubles (1959) with Mary Anderson.

Paul Escott is a well known and respected table tennis coach. He coached Wellington Teams at the NZ Championships (1975-2005) He also coached squads in Manawatu, Wanganui, Wairarapa and Buller (where he discovered Maxine Goldie). His Wellington Junior Boys Team (David Williment, Lloyd Richards, Richard Williment, Grant Taylor) won the NZ Boys Teams Title in 1977. There were 3 Onslow boys in the NZ U18 Boy’s Rankings twice and David Williment was the Number 1 ranked NZ U18 Junior Boy 3 years in a row (1976-78). Paul coached the Raroa Intermediate School Team (Andrew Budden, Mark Freeman, Edward Szeto) to win the NZ Primary and Intermediate Schools Tournament in Timaru (1993).

Paul attended the First Asian Table Tennis Union Coaches Assembly (1975) at Lake City, Otsu (Japan) together with James Morris (Northland), which had a major positive influence on his future coaching. He was selected as the coach for the first NZ Junior Team to the Australia Junior Championships in 1978 and was the NZ Junior Coach to Australia for 5 of the six years (1978-83). Paul developed, through one to one coaching, NZ Junior Representatives David Williment, Richard Williment, Robert Kerr, Tony Radford, Robert Chung, Andrew Hubbard, Chris Hickling, Jeremy Hickling, Michael Blackmore, Shane Laugesen, John Cordue and Evan Kramer. Of these players Tony Radford, Andrew Hubbard, Shane Laugesen and John Cordue were selected to represent NZ at the World Championships. Hubbard and Laugesen have won the NZ Men’s Singles Title and have been ranked Number 1 on the NZ Men’s Ranking. John Cordue was the Number 1 ranked NZ Man in 2009.

Paul served on the Wellington Committee for many years and was President of the Wellington Table Tennis Association (1997-2001). Paul was also the first President (2002-2003) of Table Tennis Wellington, when the Wellington and Hutt Valley Table Tennis Associations merged. He was the Wellington Organising Committee Chairman for the NZ Championships and World Junior Circuit Tournament (2003). Paul is a National Umpire and Referee. He has been the Referee for many Wellington Opens, the NZ Veterans Championships (2008) and the NZ Championships (2008). Paul is a Life Member of the Onslow Table Tennis Club, Wellington Table Tennis Association and the Ngaio Tennis Club where he coached juniors for 20 years.

Kevin Haines came from a table tennis family. His father, Jack Haines joined the Onslow Club in 1944 when he moved to Ngaio. Jack won the Onslow Club Singles twice and the Doubles on 5 occasions. He served on the Onslow Club ( Life Member) and Wellington Association Committees. Kevin started playing in primary school and was a Wellington Junior Representative. He is a Life Member of the Onslow Table Tennis Club and is the current Table Tennis Wellington Treasurer.

Kevin was also heavily involved in the Onslow Cricket Club (Life Member) and had the 9th best run aggregate (6015) when he retired. He served as Onslow Cricket Club President, Chairman, Captain, Secretary and Treasurer. He was awarded a North Wellington Volunteer Service Award (2009).

-Malcolm Wong

Winter Interclub Prem 2 & 3 Series 2 draws

… are here (the first week of Series 2 for Premier 2 and Premier 3 grades):

TTW Winter Interclub Premier 2 draw Series 2 (starting Wednesday)
TTW Winter Interclub Premier 3 draw Series 2 (starting Tuesday)

Winter Interclub Draws (Series 1 from May 24/25)

TTW Winter Interclub Premier 1 draw Series 1 (Tuesdays from May 24)
TTW Winter Interclub Premier 2 draw Series 1 (Wednesdays from May 25)
TTW Winter Interclub Premier 3 draw Series 1 (Tuesdays from May 24)

The new 2011 Code of Coduct document: 2011 Code of Conduct