Visit to chemist brought about innovative TT bat

by A. C. De Silva

TABLE TENNIS: Or ping-pong as it was known as in the early days, could well have it roots in India. Alternative birth-places could be the USA, Britain and South Africa, though the country that rules the sport in the modern day - China, almost certainly did not have anything to do with its origin. The exact origin of the sport, and the name its inventor has never definitely been established.

Devised as a final of miniature tennis, only towards the end of the last century, table tennis really goes back to the 12th Century Royal Tennis. The simplicity of its rules and the fact that the equipment was so easily and cheaply obtained, has made table tennis a most popular sport, enjoyed by both young and old, by royalty as well as the man in the street.

Table Tennis began, though not under that name, as a parlour game in Victorian homes. The equipment used in those days was mostly improvised and home-made. The ball was made of string, while books, placed on a table, represented the net. The racquet or bat was cut out of a thick piece of cardboard.

Bats - various shapes

The balls supplied at the time were either cork or rubber, and were frequently covered with a kind of knitted web on a piece of cloth to prevent damage to the furniture, as also to impart spin to the ball.

Bats continued to be various shapes and sizes, and materials; for that matter, until recently the controlling body specified the sizes.

There is a interesting story about how the game of Table Tennis caught the interest of the General public.

The game caught on likewildfire, both in America and Britain and then spread to other countries. British officers took it to their places of appointment with them. However, the newspapers of the time decried the game, considering its fascination a sign of decadence.

After some time, as always happens to all new innovations, people tired of ping-pong, the game into a decline, until one-day, a man named E. C. Goode gave the game a new lease of life.

Visit to chemist fruitful

The story goes that Goode was suffering from a headache. Searching for a pain killer, he went to a chemist; and when paying for whatever drug he had bought, he noticed a studded rubber cash-mat on the shop counter.

The thought came to him that it would make an ideal surface for a ping-pong bat, as it would give the player much greater control over the ball. His headache forgotten, he bought the mat from the astonished chemist; trimming it to the desired proportions, he glued it to a ping-pong paddle.

He lost no time in practising with his innovation; and became so good at it in such a short time that in the national final, he challenged the English table tennis champion and was able, through the novel bat along, to beat him by fifty (50) games to a beggarly three.

From that day onwards, the game never looked back. Everyone took it up again, tournaments both private and open were organised, and countries all over Europe joined enthusiastically in the sport. Well-known players of the time took advantage of the revolutionary pimpled rubber bat with its excellent ball control, and introduced many new techniques which gave the game a totally new appearance.

Charm

There was only one more occasion when table tennis lost its charm - in 1904, for no apparent reason; and did not revive until World War I. In 1921, the Pingpong Association was established in Britain. Realising that commercially patented name was being used by them, the association changed it the following year to Table Tennis Association.

Once it was formally established, the Hon. Ivor Montaga, a son of Lady Swaythling, then studying at Oxford University, became a table tennis fan. Other undergraduates caught the fever, and soon the first inter-university match, Oxford vs Cambridge, was arranged. It was through Ivor's initiative that his mother donated the Swaythling Cup, which like the Davis Cup in tennis, has become the symbol of international men's team supremacy.