Inter Club Tournaments aren’t as prevalent as perhaps they should be. Travelling across the West Sussex borders into the unknown should breed a sense of adventure, anticipation and above all community. Why don’t we see more of these? I really don’t know. We approached Maidstone TTC with the idea of organising such an event, in the hope of developing a relationship with a club that means a lot to me having grown up there and was also the birth place of where I discovered the game. Claire Moore at Maidstone TTC approached two players who I played with back in the day; Terry Clapperton and Rachel Woolven. Terry and I graced the Maidstone League as teammates and Rachel was the daughter of my Coach, Alan Woollven. Sadly Alan passed away a few years ago, but has left a permanent imprint on our lives. Terry, Rachel and Pingsters quickly began organising, and what happened on the 22 November 2025 was the end result.
The teams were as follows:
Pingsters A Pedro Santos, Charlie Usher and Kris Pokorowski
Pingsters B Rudi Dharmalingam, Neil Bromham and Isaac Burgess
Pingsters C Thomas James, Damian Lascelles and Konrad Kasjaniuk
Pingsters D Amanda Worne, Amelia Worne, Max Griffiths and Alex Purssell
Maidstone A Adrian Moore, Delyth North and David Wong
Maidstone B Terry Clapperton, Johann Le and Perry Oliver
Maidstone C Rachel Woollven, Slavi Arnoudov and David Aluko
Maidstone D Suhan, Luke, Innes, Tristan, Flynn and Kiran.
To summarise what was an epic day of fun and frolics on and off the table…
Professor Topspin (Pedro) walked away with his head held so high it was annoying, bagging a 100% win rate.
Charlie had too many 5 setters
Kris was confusing as ever with his funny bat
Rudi had a stinker
Neil had a stinker
Isaac had the longest rallies
Thomas James wore pink shorts.
Konrad battled bravely
Amanda has now lost her hearing as she was the closest to the speaker at the curry house.
Amelia was so cold she wore what I think was a dressing gown
Max just found the whole day really funny
Damian tore up the table tennis stroke handbook by performing some miracles that shouldn’t be possible.
Alex told me in private that he’s been to Ibiza 15 times.
It was wonderful to see a fine crop of Maidstonian juniors starting their journeys having only picked up a bat less than a year ago. Maidstone TTC like Pingsters TTC is a brand new club, just a year old and rapidly becoming a force in developing and nurturing young table tennis talent. Despite all of us chipping in we were not able to bring home The Pingstone Cup. However, we will be playing on home turf next year, mistakes will have been learnt and we might all be wearing pink shorts, which could help.
