Officials Tour South Island to Promote Table Tennis

NZ Secretary/Treasurer KB Longmore and Management Committee member C Burke (pictured) made a South Island promotional tour in April, visiting Dunedin, Invercargill, Timaru, Christchurch and Greymouth. As a direct result, Associations in Southland and West Coast were formed and affiliated to NZTTA. A Canterbury Association was also formed and their affiliation is pending. Exhibition play was included in the visits.

It proved a very effective method of promoting the sport and it was decided to organise a similar tour next year on a nationwide basis.

 

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AGM Discusses Means of Attracting Overseas Players

With memories of the table tennis spectacle presented by Fred Perry and Frank Wilde in Wellington in 1933 still fresh in the minds of officials, consideration was given to ways of attracting more top overseas players to this country at minimal cost. One idea was to write to the national associations of selected countries requesting they advise New Zealand if any of their top players are about to visit this country on holiday. It was hoped that exhibitions could be fitted into their itinerary.

A debate took place on the possibility of professional overseas players settling permanently in New Zealand. The Management Committee had earlier decided that, should that occur, such players should be allowed to compete in tournaments and interclub. AGM delegates saw difficulties with that and recommended the decision be reviewed by the incoming committee. The review took place and the decision was rescinded in 1937.

As it turned out, it was many decades before any professional player settled in New Zealand and derived a fulltime income from playing and coaching, although 1931 World Champion Miklos Szabados moved to Australia and established table tennis academies there in his later career. Decades later in New Zealand the reverse was more often the case. From the 1980s locally produced players began turning professional by securing overseas playing and coaching positions, mostly in Europe.

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Method of Fixing Fees Debated

A debate took place at the AGM over whether District Association affiliation fees should be based on the number of interclub teams (the present system) or changed to a capitation system where the fees were based on the number of individual subscribing members. A motion seeking a change to individual member capitation fees was defeated but the issue was to rear its head many times in the future.

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Third NZ Championships Popular: Junior Events Introduced

The national championships continued to grow. Spectator interest was especially high and people had to be turned away at some stages. There was a clear need for larger venues – the entry was growing by the year, the standard of play was steadily improving with players requiring more room around and behind the tables and there was more and more interest being shown by the general public. For the third year in a row the tournament was conducted by the Wellington Association.

Also for the third year in a row an Auckland player won the men’s singles. In fact, the birthplace of the national association would have to wait more than a quarter of a century for its first men’s singles champion. Murray Dunn would finally bring the title to Wellington in 1960.

Auckland’s Ken Cantlay became the third men’s singles champion in three years. He would also win in 1937. The women’s champion was again Iris Dove (Auckland), who became the first to retain a national singles title. The Donald Cups for the two open singles events were donated and first presented this year.

An innovation was the introduction of junior singles events. The inaugural champions were L Smith and D Croxton, winning the boys and girls events respectively. Both were from Wellington.

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