NZ Table Tennis Association becomes Table Tennis New Zealand

After a series of planning workshops in 1995, submissions from interested parties, debate at the 1995 AGM and clearance for a recommended restructure to proceed, painstaking work (primarily by Robin Radford and John Beatson) drafting a new Constitution, and approval of it at a Special General Meeting on 11 July - New Zealand Table Tennis Association ceased to exist and Table Tennis New Zealand was born.

In essence the new structure replaced the elected National Council and Management Committee with a governing Board whose members were appointed by an Appointments Committee. Responsibility for day to day management was vested in the Executive Director who was empowered to appoint specialist advisory committees. The office of Honorary Treasurer was abolished and financial management taken over by the National Office.

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Table Tennis “Outsider” Elected Chairman

The Appointments Committee opted for a mix of specialist table tennis knowledge and outside promotional and marketing expertise in making its selections for TTNZ’s first Board. The Chairman was Alan Hounsell, one of four non-table tennis appointments whose CV included major achievements in sales and marketing in the insurance industry as well as a top level career in cricket as a player, coach and selector.

Also appointed were Philippa Baker, MBE (Sport Wanganui programme manager and former world champion rower), Helen Mathieson (sponsorship manager for a major bank) and Sarah Sandley (marketing manager for a high profile book publisher and a former top English table tennis player). The other three Board positions were filled by officials transferring from NZ Table Tennis’s former administration: John Beatson (National Council and Management Committee Chairman), Ron Garrett (former President and National Councillor) and Marilyn Smith (National Councillor and marketing liaison secretary for a community polytech.)

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NZ Hosts Oceania Championships

The Oceania Championships were held in New Zealand for the first time since 1990. Auckland Association was the host with David Jackson the Tournament Controller and Ivan Houghton (Wellington) the Referee.

The provision of top level umpires, transport, catering and the organizing of a social event made the championships a major exercise in logistics for the host Association and volunteers. Six countries competed and there were Under 20 and Under 17 age-categories as well as open events. Team events were conducted in the Open and Under 20 categories.

A very large contingent of New Zealanders competed with 26 selected in teams and 13 more in individual events only. The senior representatives were Paul Bowman, Peter Jackson, Shane Laugesen, Aaron Winborn, Sarah Finch and Li Chunli. Barry Butler, Murray Finch and Peter Hirst were the manager/coaches.

Peter Jackson and Li Chunli won gold medals in the men’s and women’s singles. Chunli was too good for her sister Karen in the final, winning 21-9, 21-10, 21-18 while Peter won a cliff-hanger against Russell Lavale (Australia) 21-17, 21-14, 15-21, 18-21, 21-18. Both Chunli and Peter had showed superb form and they went on to easily win the mixed doubles together. Chunli and Karen won the women’s doubles while Karen won the Under 20 singles, and also the doubles with Vicki Garrett.

Both the men’s and women’s teams lost 2-3 to Australia in the team finals.

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Olympic Games

Li Chunli, NZ’s sole representative at the Atlanta Olympics in July, went into the event at the top of her game, confident she had a chance of at least progressing to the second stage (last 16). After that – who knows!!

In her group of three only the winner qualified for stage 2. Chunli began by beating a player ranked six places above her, 21-14, 21-8 – but then faced the World No 3, Chen Jing (Taiwan). Chen was the 1988 Olympic Champion but Chunli (ranked 52) had beaten her less than 12 months previously and knew she had a chance. But Chen won 21-10, 21-15 and went on to win the silver medal. Chunli’s Olympics were over.

But at least she got to play. New Zealand’s other Olympic hopeful, Peter Jackson, had blitzed the field at the Oceania Qualifying tournament, unbeaten in fifteen matches and beating each of Australia’s three best players three times. But with the final say in the hands of the NZ Olympic Selectors who deemed Peter’s world ranking too low, he was not selected. Australian players he had beaten in the qualifying tournament therefore occupied the Olympic places reserved for Oceania. Protests were lodged with the NZ Olympic Committee but Peter’s non-selection was re-affirmed.

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Executive Director Retires

An eleven year era came to an end when TTNZ Executive Director Merv Allardyce retired on 20 December.

Milestone events during Merv’s term of office include a lucrative sponsorship deal with Commercial Union Insurance for the NZ Secondary School Team Championships, and the 1986/87 administrative restructure which introduced regional representation on a national council.

Merv came to the job with a wealth of administrative experience. From 1975 to 1985 he had served on the NZTTA Executive Committee, mainly as Coaching Convener and in that role was instrumental in the employment of English coach Peter Hirst as fulltime NZ Director of Coaching. He had earlier served as Secretary of both Manawatu and Wanganui TTAs. He began his career as a sports administrator while still a teenager.

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Australian Championships: Large NZ Participation

An unusually large group of New Zealanders competed in the Australian Open Championships in Brisbane in August – mainly due to the opening of the State teams event to New Zealand teams. A men’s team of Aaron Winborn, Paul Bowman, Wayne Gear and Paul Innes and a women’s team of Tracey Epps, Tracey Phillips, Debbie Garrett and Vicki Garrett participated, with the teams managed and coached by Richard Lee and Murray Finch respectively.

The Men’s team finished 3rd ahead of highly favoured New South Wales and Queensland. The women finished 5th. Competition was intense in the individual events with players from Asia and Europe also in the field. Aaron Winborn reached the final of a Consolation event for group runners-up and first round post-section losers, and Paul Bowman and Wayne Gear won their first round doubles match.

Juniors
In a separate championship held in Sydney in early July, NZ teams of Under 17 and Under 14 boys and girls competed in team and individual events at the Australian Junior Championships. The Under 17 girls did well, finishing 3rd behind Queensland and Victoria. The boys beat ACT and Tasmania to finish 6th. The Under 14 teams finished 4th (boys) and 6th (girls). In the individual events there were several last 16 finishes and in the Under 14 boys doubles Greg Burton and Andrew Hovey reached the quarter-finals.

In previous years the younger age-group for this event has been Under 15 and the change to Under 14 was advised to TTNZ at short notice. This put pressure on the selectors and also disappointed our top under 15 players who had been participating in training camps in preparation for the championships.

The teams were (Under 17 boys) Vincent Ho, Jamie Lennox, Jason Ng, Greg Smith; (Under 17 girls) Anna Danby, Catherine Danby, Tracey McLauchlan, Andrea Winstanley; (Under 14 boys) Greg Burton, John Cordue, Andrew Hovey; (Under 14 girls) Lydia Burgess, Deborah Morrison, Alison Thomson, Leanne Wight. The officials were Murray Finch, Stacey Hooper, Zhu Hui.

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Table Tennis Info Magazine Launched

Following Board approval, a new table tennis magazine was introduced in October. Entitled Table Tennis Info it contained news, tournament results, submitted articles and Association reports spiced with cartoons and humorous snippets. It was edited by Robin Radford with sub-editing assistance from John Kiley who also contributed articles. Supplies of the magazine were dispatched to all Associations in sufficient quantity to enable each registered member to receive a copy. Three or four issues per year were planned.

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Bid for Hosting Rights for 2000 World Veterans Championships

Led by Executive Director Merv Allardyce, TTNZ joined forces with Christchurch City Council to make a determined bid to host the 2000 World Veterans Championships. The bid was presented during the European Championships at Bratislava, Slovakia and Merv Allardyce was part of a high-powered delegation that included Christchurch city officials. Success would have been a dramatic coup for New Zealand but strong competition from four other countries combined with the fact that the event had been hosted in Melbourne, Australia in 1994, left us with only an outside chance. The event was allocated to Vancouver, Canada.

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Changes to Selection Panel / Interisland Matches Discontinued

Among the early decisions by the new Board was a change to the make-up of the National Selection Panel. Previously it consisted of a North Island and South Island Selector (each elected by the Associations in the respective Islands), and a Convener appointed from within the Management Committee. The new policy was to appoint a three-member selection panel from a list of applicants.

Somewhat coincidentally, at the December AGM a decision was made to discontinue the annual senior and junior North Island v South Island team contests which had traditionally taken place before the inter-association teams section of the NZ Championships. This decision eliminated the need for Island selectors and would have necessitated a change to the selection panel in any event.

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Separate NZ Championships Held for Seniors and Juniors

In a radical change from tradition, the New Zealand Senior and Junior Championships were completely separated. The change was prompted by schools moving from a three to four term year with the holidays moving from August to late September/October. The NZ Senior Championships ran from 8-13 July and the Juniors from 23-28 September. This idea was tried for one year only and the full championships were held in the September school holidays from 1997.

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High Profile Developments in Nelson

Two separate accomplishments raised the profile of table tennis in Nelson. In the first instance Nelson TTA was the recipient of a TTNZ Association award. These awards were instituted in 1993 and presented for significant achievement. The Nelson award was for publicity and membership development. An enormous amount of media coverage was secured for local events, and club membership increased by 35% - largely as a result of recruitment drives in schools.

The other accomplishment was the establishment of a Table Tennis Academy. This was a private initiative led by Bryan Keane. A coach was brought to Nelson from China and the institution offered short and long term accommodation for coaching and training. TTNZ utilized the facility for Training Camps and a summer programme organized by the Academy attracted over 70 junior players.

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