New Zealand Attends Its Third World Championships (out of 29)

A piece of history was made on 15 March when nine players and a manager boarded an aircraft in Auckland en route, via Great Britain, to Sweden where they will represent New Zealand at the 29th World Table Tennis Championships in Stockholm. The 29th championships! And only the third featuring an officially selected New Zealand team! The last was in China in 1961 and before that, England in 1954 when only a men’s team competed.

So just attending the Worlds was history making. Also significant was that it was the largest NZ team ever sent overseas, and that it included four players aged between 15 and 21 specially added for development purposes.

The media coverage generated by this trip was truly phenomenal. It began in 1966 when the decision to compete was first announced, continued as speculation ran rife regarding likely selections, was maintained in local regions where players were raising money (the young players’ selection was conditional on their raising the full cost of the trip) and moved into top gear in the days before the team departed. It was then that the dress uniform was unveiled with the women in particular attracting attention and often featured in full-figure newspaper photographs. Their outfits included stylish white felt bowler hats, white gloves, tailored black jackets and black handbags. The men were more traditional with their grey trousers and black blazers.

Once the team began competing, first in warm-up matches in Scotland and England, then at Stockholm, newspaper articles of varying sizes giving the results of every contest, and sometimes all individual matches, began appearing throughout the country with the players’ home areas being especially liberal with their coverage. Then came the final burst of publicity after the team returned home, with a manager’s report and all team members sharing their own stories and their views on the value of the tour.

Clippings of the press coverage were painstakingly preserved by NZTTA Secretary (and team manager) Ken Wilkinson. 240 separate articles and photographs relating to the trip are known to have been published.

The men's team was Alan Tomlinson, captain (age 33), Murray Dunn (31), Bryan Foster (27), Harrison Waterhouse (20), Terry O’Carroll (19). The women's, as pictured above, left to right: Dawn Wade (21), Neti Traill (23), Yvonne Fogarty (15), Cathy Johnson (23). The manager was Ken Wilkinson who turned 50 while the team was in Great Britain.

It was a well-run World Championship. Swedish fans were ecstatic when their home-grown stars (Hans Alser and Kjell Johansson) won the men’s doubles. All other major titles went to Japanese players, and Japan won both the men’s and women’s teams contests. China did not attend due to internal strife at home.

54 nations and 250 players did compete. New Zealand had travelled the greatest distance. Our men’s team finished 25th, the women’s 16th. This was slightly ahead of expectations.

On their way to their final placing the NZ men faced Ireland to decide the winner of their group, having gone through their section contests without a loss. All square at 4-4 New Zealand’s Bryan Foster faced Irishman Clifford Thompson in the final match. It went to three but Foster won the third in a canter. As group winners the team members were each awarded a medal. “I believe the medals (see right--->) are the only ones that have been won by NZ at a world championships,” reminisced Bryan Foster decades later.

Murray Dunn progressed further than any other New Zealander in the individual events, reaching the fifth round (round of 32). He had a bye in one of the earlier rounds and tough close 5 game battles in the three matches he won. It was a sublime performance from Dunn, a veteran now of all three world championships.

Neti Traill won two matches, 15 year old Yvonne Fogarty did splendidly in such company to win one, and Alan Tomlinson also did well to reach the semi-finals of the men’s consolation event.

Great Warm-Up in UK
The team had a three-week warm-up in Scotland and England and turned in some great results. Tomlinson beat England No 2 Dennis Neale in a Yorkshire county match, he beat England No 5 Brian Wright in the final of the Stevenage Open in Hertford, and was runner-up in the Scottish Open. Bryan Foster and Neti Traill won the Scottish mixed doubles, one of several successes for the pair. New Zealand won four other titles at the Scottish Open: the men’s doubles (Tomlinson and Foster), the women’s doubles (Fogarty and Johnson), the junior girls (Yvonne Fogarty) and, as the icing on the cake, Neti Traill won the women’s singles. Neti Traill and Cathy Johnson won the women’s doubles at the North England Open, where Yvonne Fogarty added another junior singles title. Bryan Foster (pictured) beat England’s No 3 (C Warren) in the Leicester county match.

Lessons Learned
Alan Tomlinson returned home as the best-performed player in the team. He had the best results in Great Britain and the best singles record in the team contests at the Worlds. The “find” of the trip was 15-year-old Yvonne Fogarty. She had been considered by some as a bench-warmer for her older team-mates, selected only for international experience and as an investment for the future. In the event her results justified her selection as a full team member on merit alone. She played with Neti Traill in the two opening team matches, against Norway and USA – both won by NZ.

Lessons from the six week trip abounded when the team landed back in New Zealand on 27 April. Murray Dunn went public with a three point plan: send our top players to Asia as often as possible; send our top juniors to a Japanese training school; send a team to every world championships. Yvonne Fogarty was also sought out by her local Otago press and she stressed the need for New Zealand players to work on their speed. “The Japanese are fantastically fast,” she said. Team manager Ken Wilkinson assessed the trip as a success overall. He too emphasised the lack of speed shown by New Zealanders at this level and also identified serving and receiving serve as a weakness. He felt Neti Traill and the younger men performed below their full potential and that Tomlinson, Dunn and Fogarty excelled themselves.

However the trip is evaluated, the fact remains that New Zealand was not outclassed as a table tennis nation and that nine New Zealand players have now added enormously to their track record of international experience.

---

Ten Shillings a Day

This figure (which converted to one dollar after the change to decimal currency on 10 July) was mentioned half-jokingly at the farewell ceremony for our World Championships team as a nominal amount of pocket money for touring players. “It would be considered insufficient by most touring teams,” said Vice-President Keith Fraser (pictured). “But it would be gratefully accepted by the New Zealand players.” Mr Fraser went on to say that, not only was NZTTA unable to pay even that sort of money to its players, the players themselves, their supporters and their associations had been called on to raise the bulk of the money required to send the team away.

---

England v New Zealand: Five Tests Played

A mere three months after our team returned from the World Championships in Sweden a further series of international matches took place – this time in New Zealand. The touring players were from England: Dennis Neale (ranked no 2) and Stuart Gibbs (no 6). They played five tests, sixteen provincial contests (with exhibition matches), and competed in the South Island and New Zealand Championships.

They won all their team matches including the five tests and Neale won the men’s singles and doubles, with Gibbs, at both Championships.

Neale was the better player with a hard-hitting over-the-table game combined with a delicate touch and a rock-steady temperament. Gibbs was more spectacular and appeared to scamper about with greater speed. Both players delighted spectators in the exhibition matches with their powerful driving, acrobatic defence and general agility.

Undoubtedly even our best players were outclassed, though not disgraced. In fact, Alan Tomlinson managed to beat Gibbs (18 in the fifth) in the Wellington test, inflicting England’s only loss of the tour. And Tomlinson combined with Bryan Foster to take a game off the English pair in the doubles match in each of the first three tests. In the opening match of the first test in Dunedin Foster thrilled his home crowd by extending Gibbs to five games.

Garry Frew and Tomlinson represented NZ in the fourth test in Auckland and new international Murray Borlase (pictured) played singles alongside Tomlinson in the final test in Wanganui. Borlase and Frew combined for the doubles.

It was a sponsored tour, with Rothmans furnishing publicity material and adding professional impetus to the promotional effort in general. Despite this, the majority of the host associations were unable to return a profit from their local fixture. This resulted in a greater resolve by NZTTA to build up a tour fund, fearing reluctance by district associations to host such contests in the future.

Nonetheless, the tour attracted considerable media interest, enhancing table tennis’s already high public profile thanks to the phenomenal coverage given to the World Championships.

---

Development Ideas Aplenty

Associations continued to submit development ideas and report on their own development programmes. Coaching was the predominant activity, with one association (South Canterbury) presenting coaching talks and films to over 450 school students. The library of each school in the area was supplied with a book on coaching.

Manawatu conducted a seminar on how to set up and run new clubs; North Taranaki held a tournament specifically for non-interclub players and Otago instituted representative matches for lower grade players. A general increase in summer interclub was also reported.

The reports submitted were disseminated throughout the country so the best ideas could be adopted in other areas.

---

Service Rule Change

The latest change to the service rule was long overdue in the opinion of the New Zealand players and officials who attended the World Championships this year and in 1961. The new rule required the ball to be projected upwards, always in the view of the umpire, and so that it visibly leaves the palm. It must be struck as it descends from its highest point.

The change was designed to eliminate the widespread practice of dropping the ball onto the bat or serving straight off the palm.

---

Poverty Bay Hosts NZ Maori Championships

Fresh from their experience of conducting a successful North Island Championships in 1966, Poverty Bay Association administrators were involved in the organization and running of the 2nd Maori Table Tennis Championships held in Gisborne’s YMCA Stadium on 8 July. Staff of the Department of Maori Affairs and local players were also on the organizing committee, which was chaired by Frank Powell of Hawke’s Bay TTA.

More than 80 players competed in open and junior events. The men’s singles champion was J Pere and the women’s J Williams.

---

University Tournament

A tournament for NZ University students was held in Dunedin in August, comprising individual events, inter-university team events and a men’s and women’s contest between a selected NZ Universities team and an Otago representative team.

Canterbury University won the teams event. The men’s singles winner was GK Jackson, the women’s M Ogle.

Otago won both contests against NZ Universities: 7-5 in the men’s event, 10-2 in the women’s.

---

Huge Participation in National Boys Brigade Table Tennis Tournament

Boys Brigade in New Zealand, the organization’s national body, was responsible for running this tournament – the first on a national basis ever attempted. Over 400 Brigade members participated, representing more than 100 separate companies. Preliminary rounds were held locally with second rounds conducted in Palmerston North, Hamilton, Blenheim and Timaru. The finals took place in Wellington, with the matches at this stage under the supervision of Wellington TTA’s junior selection convenor, Campbell Harkness. All other aspects of the nationwide event were managed by Brigade officers.

12th Company, Auckland Battalion won the senior competition and 4th, Timaru the juniors.

---