While most Table Tennis clubs have shut up shop for the summer, for London Progress, it is business as usual. In fact, this last month has seen a roller coaster of activity.

Johnny Leach Cup Finalists

Last weekend, at Loughborough University, our top cadets, Matt Ware, David McBeth, Garth Kinlock and Rafi Marom. They reached the finals of the national Leach Cup and by the narrowest of margins, failed to overturn the favourites, Gavin and Myles Evans and Stuart Mudie playing for Grantham. Both Garth and Matt defeated Myles Evans and David so very nearly forced a fifth game decider, but could not quite hold on to his two game lead against Myles. What was most impressive was the spirit of the London Progress team, quite as good as anything we have produced in the past. With the club looking to rebuild its senior Premier team with young blood over the next two years, this exciting performance offers the club a real prospect of creating yet another all conquering team to match the present eight-times champions.

Junior British League Silverware for Progress

One week earlier the club's top juniors were also involved in some national action, this time in Wolverhampton, for the final weekend of the British Junior League. Our first team lead by London Academy and Bristol Academy hero, Ashley Stokes, and ably supported by Yasir Mauthoor and Daniel Ives, performed particularly well on the Sunday to defeat both their opponents comfortably and thus secure a mid-table finish. It was our second team though, consisting of Rafi Marom, Tony Alvarez, Garth Kinlock and new recruit, Andrew Hagger, who really set their division on fire, winning all of their ten games throughout the two weekends. Hagger was particularly impressive with nine wins out of nine in his first British League performance.

TTK/ West London Academy win again

While the club's youngsters have been on their travels, London Progress have been busy in their state of the art, Sport England funded, Southall Sports Centre. Highlight of the month has been the hosting of an ETTA Level 1 coaching course which saw 20 candidates go through their theory and practical tests. All participants passed and 8 are already involved in a Level 2 upgrade. With table tennis in the Capital undergoing a major renaissance, largely due to the outstanding intervention of schools Charity, TTK/Greenhouse, the need for good quality coaches is greater than ever. A further Level 2 course is being planned for Southall Sports Centre in a few months time, details of which will appear on this website shortly.

While on the subject of TTK, special mention should go to London Progress captain, Jason Sugrue, who has performed wonders with his TTK funded, West London Academy squad. His youngsters finished a powerful first, second and third in the All London Finals of the LJTTS earlier this month, and just to underline their dramatic development, they won the annual TTK/Alan Sherwood Cup at the weekend, defeating Grant Solder's Morpeth's team in the final. Of course the real winners of the tournament were the 220 participants who took part from the ever growing number of TTK funded schools across London and beyond.

In the wake of the tragic killing of Kiyan Prince at Edgware last week, the work of TTK, Brentford FC in the Community programmes and clubs like London Progress become ever more important. On behalf of everyone at London Progress, we offer our heart felt condolences to Kiyan's family

The GLC comes to Southall again.

This weekend marks the conclusion of our first full season at Southall Sports Centre and we would like to offer our thanks to our partners, Active Ealing and their Southall team for their wonderful support. The finale of the Southall programme, which consisted of no less than 25 tournaments, will be the hosting of the Greater London Championships. With an entry exceeding 160, this will be the largest GLC for over a decade.Junior events roll out on the Saturday and the senior events take place on the Sunday. Top seeds include Progress stars, Terry Young, Hubert Noah and Alex Echervarria, so the chance of Progress winning the Men's Open event for the second successive year is good.

London Progress: A Club for All

The weekend gets off to an early start as London Progress, in conjunction with Active Ealing and the London Sports Forum, host the first West London Tournament for players with Learning Difficulties. This tournament represents a vital step in the London Progress plan to make Southall Sports Centre the home of Table Tennis for People with Disabilities. This inaugural tournament will be quickly followed up in October with a tournament for students of West London's Special Schools and from there, London Progress is looking to develop a whole range of disability events. The club's aim is, as always, maximum participation and maximum performance. Progress will not be happy until we have produced players for the Olympics, the Para Olympics and the Special Olympics.

Volunteer helpers on Friday, 10am-2pm would be much appreciated.