SOUTH DERBYSHIRE LINKS PROVING HUGE SUCCESS FOR BURTON UXBRIDGE Burton Uxbridge Table Tennis Club’s recent growth has continued with the club links growing into South Derbyshire, where they are helping to set up two community clubs at Granville & Pingle schools. These projects, funded by the South Derbyshire Sports Partnership, aim to not only provide opportunity to youngsters but also encourage more senior players to either return or begin playing the game, which is an ideal exercise source. The Pingle club, running on a Tuesday night from 7-8.30pm already has a member recuperating from a heart by-pass operation as well as other retired players. Alongside this, it is giving the chance for parents to come down and play with their children. The younger elements of the club, having started playing at school, are honing their skills and are already having competition success. In the recent Derbyshire Schools Individual Championships, Edward Worth, a year 7 pupil from Pingle went all the way through to the quarter finals where he was beaten by eventual winner Ronan Kelly. However, to but this in prospective, this was after only 4 months playing table tennis against Ronan’s 4 years!! Edward’s success was not alone as fellow Pingle pupils Jamie Reynolds & Danny Hyde both came through their groups in what was the first competitive outing for all 3. Pingle was not alone on the success side as the Granville club sporned another quarter finalist, this time in the under 16 event. Sam Mastropietro has been playing for slightly longer than other players, having been a member at Burton Uxbridge for over a year but his interest in the game was started at Granville. And the quarter final so nearly became a semi final as he was just edged out 17-15 in the first end before falling away to defeat in the next. Still, with Sam being only a year 9, playing against children mostly 2 years his senior, next year’s competition may be a different story. The Granville club’s success didn’t end there though as fellow year 9’s Mateusz Sidoruk & Alex Glover both qualified for the knock-out stages before bowing out. The Granville club, which runs on a Friday afternoon, 3-4.30pm is currently looking towards the younger element to progress. Sessions are being organised in local primary schools to encourage more participation and so far the response has been extremely encouraging. Netherseal Primary, a feeder school to Granville, has already found itself a star of the future in Ellie Rutland-Jones. After only picking up a bat in September, she was just pipped at the post in the Under 11 event, losing a very tight final to Jayden Budworth from Stavely. Jayden has been playing for 4 years and has now won this competition 3 years in a row. The fact that Ellie forced her to save 4 games points in the first end highlighted what an amazing performance this was from the Derbyshire 11 year old and she could follow in the footsteps of Burton Uxbridge’s main female start, Abbie Milwain who hot footed it from the English National under 21 competition, to win the Under 16 girls event. All in all, the project, which began over a cup of coffee at the first joint South Derbyshire/East Staffordshire Team competition only 4 months ago, has taken off in a way that has surprised all involved. Project coach Simon Price commented after the schools competitions “The involvement from Steve Smith at the sports partnership and the dedication of the teachers Mark Hodges (Pingle) & Adam Hoult (Granville) has created a fantastic impetus. For me it’s just a case of catching up with them and keeping it going!! Lewis Adams has also made great strides in getting the older element involved at Pingle, something which we are hoping will grow and blossom into bigger and even better things” For details about Pingle & Granville Community clubs please contact Simon Price 07890 520692 and for more table tennis information please go to our website http://www.uxbridgettc.co.uk/ | 
