Opening new doors to table tennis in Merthyr Tydfil

For Table Tennis Wales, the partnership agreement with Merthyr College provides a quality training facility available to their best young players, but also one that opens its doors to the wider community to come and try the sport.

These can be young hopefuls who are turning up on a Wednesday and looking to take up the sport for the first time, or adults who want to take up the sport for its fitness benefits and socializing.

Table Tennis Wales chief executive Owen Rodgers insists the strategy to grow the sport in Wales must do more than just serve the 28 existing clubs in areas that are relatively well served in terms of sporting access.

“Support for our current clubs goes without saying, but there needs to be development outside of those clubs too – and outside of that, here in Merthyr, where there wasn’t a table tennis club before,” he says.

“It’s about finding raw talent and developing it towards performance goals, trying to help those players go as far as we can.

“But we are also meeting our diversity and equality goals. That’s why we’ve teamed up with organizations like the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of Wales because they do exactly the same work.”

The ingredients for success look promising – a modern, quality hall and facilities, the energy of the local youth and an inspiring young coach.

“We’ve got a great facility here, we’ve got the enthusiasm and we just needed a well-known coach – in this case Callum – who will draw people in,” adds Owen.

“We have started a community club and a good measure of success will be how many are here in three months.

“This can go wrong. But if you don’t try, you’ll never develop anything and we know that there has definitely been a diversity issue in our sport, as there has been in others.”

For Simon Evans, finding the next Callum Evans – or Team Wales Commonwealth Games medalists Charlotte Carey or Anna Hursey – is well worth the effort, as well as using table tennis to benefit the community and the college.

“Unfortunately, many of our students have never been to Cardiff and they probably couldn’t afford to commute to a college there,” adds Simon.

“But if they could come in here and be the next Anna, the next Charlotte or the next Callum, that would be fantastic.

“That’s what I’m about. They give them the best education and improve Merthyr’s image as a city.

“And we’re offering other academy students the opportunity to get into an area they never would have considered.”