The new season of the British League Premier Division starts this weekend at Southall Sports Centre, the home venue of seven times British Champions, London Progress. The opening weekend has special significance in that young Olympic hopeful, Darius Knight, plays his first match for London Progress, taking the place of Jason Sugrue who is away on international duty for Ireland. The Progress squad has been strengthened again this season with not only Darius Knight joining the squad but former Irish No1, Colum Slavin being recruited for the coming battles.
Whatever the outcome of the Premier season, London Progress are keen to remind us that the club is not and has never been a one team wonder. The club boasts five teams in the men's British League as well as teams in the women's and junior leagues. In all, the club currently has 20 teams operating in national and regional competitions. After the first weekend of play in the non Premier Divisions, London Progress is already leading in two divisions and is well placed for glory in a third.
Satisfying as all this might be, the real success of the club has to be measured by the scale and ambition of its community programme. The club has developed a wide network of feeder clubs and partners and it is this rapidly expanding network that makes London Progress such an exciting place to be.
The jewel in the crown is of course the three million pound, Sport England funded Southall Sports Centre, where the club is now based. Working in partnership with Southall College and the very forward thinking 'Active Ealing', the club has, in a relatively short time, attracted hundreds of local kids into the melting pot that is London Progress Table Tennis Club.
National, religious and social tensions evaporate instantly once the youngsters become addicted to the joys of ping. A vibrant summer programme, coordinated by Centre manager, Andrew Rogers, has paid dividends and the club has quickly created an entirely new tier of local members, most of whom had no idea a few months ago that table tennis existed as a competitive sport. Come October, these youngsters will be competing in the West London National Cadet League as the first step of their new table tennis careers.
Two other key partners in the Progress network are the newly created City Academies, London Academy in Edgware and The West London Academy in Northolt. Both academies are part of the government's programme of reinvigorating inner London schools and both academies have been most creative in developing their links with London Progress. The two schools operate curriculum table tennis and after school clubs and both have produced a rich seam of talented youngsters who are feeding into the national programmes being run at Southall.
Ashley Stokes and Egle Adomelyte from the London Academy played for London Progress in Division Two of the Senior British League at the weekend and amazingly both players won eight out of eight of their matches.The government would be pleased to know that both players also scored exceedingly well in their academic studies, Stokes getting 10 A-C grades in his GCSE's and Adomelyte scoring no less than 3 A's in her A-Levels.
At the West London Academy, Club Captain and Irish No1, Jason Sugrue is running a full weekly table tennis programme part funded by the exciting new charity, Table Tennis for Kids (TTK). TTK has managed to tap into some important City funding and with this money are funding table tennis coaches in some of the most impoverished inner city areas.Their mission is simple and identical to that of London Progress: improve the life chances of talented youngsters through the wonders of table tennis. As TTK is discovering, and as London Progress has known for the past fifteen years, this is a project that works.
If you want to see the club in full battle mode, Southall is the place to be this weekend. Matches start at 11am and 3pm on the Saturday and 10am and 2pm on the Sunday. Everybody is welcome so just turn up with your friends and family and wittness one of Britain's sporting greats in action.
Jon Kaufman
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