London Progress are not the sort of club to become complacent. Not content to rest with their eighth consecutive British League title, the British Club Champions embarked on an arduous but enjoyable summer programme that saw the Londoners in action in the Isle of Wight, Liverpool and ,of course, their own Sport England funded headquarters in Southall. In addition to two week-long training camps, London Progress organised their own hardbat championships, a sponsored walk from Southall to the London Eye and a day long table tennis 'come-and-try' in the annual Asian Mela in the London Borough of Ealing.
The holiday programme started off with Jason Sugrue heading a week long training camp in the Isle of Wight. Based at the excellent Carl Prean Table Tennis Centre, the training camp saw Jason and his coaching team of Egle Adomelyte, Dhaivat Pandya and Ashley Stokes push the next generation of Progress youngsters to the next level. But it wasn't all hard training on the table. Off the table were the evening trips to the beach, the mandatory football matches and, of course, the night-time chaos at the club camping site.
On the return to London, Progress set to work immediately to organise the club's AGM and their Annual Hardbat Championships. Local favourite Jon Kaufman was quickly bundled out of the tournament by the 'group of death' front-runners, Henry Medellin and Jason Sugrue despite easy victories against Anthony Corbin and Marco Essomba. In the knockout stage tournament pretenders Daniel Cannon, Ashley Stokes and Yasir Mauthoor were duly dispatched by Sugrue and Medellin and it was these two hardbat gladiators who faced each other in the final. Medellin fired rocket after rocket at Sugrue, but the Irish No1 just soaked up the punishment with a series of superb long range defensive chops that had the crowd gasping in their seats. Medellin eventually tired and Sugrue defiantly picked up his winners cheque.
At the AGM the club's Annual Report and the new development plan for the forthcoming season was discussed, amended and agreed. A fifteen strong committee was elected including the winning combination of Egle Adomelyte, Jason Sugrue, Charlie Alvarez, Anthony Small and Jon Kaufman.
A couple of days later, the club embarked on its first sponsored walk with the Southall Sports Centre being the biggest sponsor.The planned route was along the Grand Union Canal to Brentford and then along the River Themes to the London Eye. Jon Kaufman showed why he was a history teacher rather than a Geography teacher when he led the Progress youngsters for the first five miles, but unfortunately in the wrong direction! It was not Brentford signs that started to emerge but signs to Birmingham. Quickly seeking to cover his embarrassment, the Progress 'leader' quickly invoked the club motto: improvise, adapt and overcome. A canal boat just happened to be chugging along at that very moment of despair and turning defeat into victory the entire Progress posse hitched a ride all the way to Camden. A short two mile walk through the cool London Parks and the Progress walkers had arrived at the London Eye. Another glorious Progress victory!
The Progress Summer Programme continued with a great Progress day out at the London Mela, a magical festival of Asian music, food and dance. London Progress set up a table tennis table along side the BBC London Bus and the Active Ealing mini bus. Torrential downpours did not deter the day's activities and hundreds of festival goers had a go at the world's most popular sport and London Progress once again showed why it is such a successful community based sports club.
By mid August it was time for the really serious stuff. The Liverpool Grand Prix was to be important to Progress for two reasons. Firstly it represented the first real competitive tournament of the new season and Progress has made a habit of sending up a large contingent to this event. But this Grand Prix was particularly important for another reason. It was to be the public launch of the new three way partnership between London Progress, Double Happiness from Shanghi and their UK agent, TT Links. New sponsors, new T-shirts and new plans for the future but it was the same old Progress on the table with the club winning three events and coming second in three others. Matt Ware was the hero of the day winning the Under 21's and coming runner up in Band 2. Dhavat Pandya won Band 1 with some magnificent performances and Vidal Graham completed the hat trick with a win in the Men's Restricted Singles. Egle Adomlyte reached the finals of the Women's Singles and Yasir Mauthoor lost in the final of the Band 3. Good performances were also recorded by Alex Echervarria in reaching the semi-finals of the Open and Hannah Hicks making two semi finals during the weekend. Team spirit was excellent and the whole club is looking forward to the start of the British League.
Back from Liverpool and London Progress launched its first Southall training camp with fifty youngsters of all abilities lining up to improve their skills. The highlight of the training camp is the way the top juniors are prepared to spend two hours every day training the beginners before they set about improving their own skills under the direction of club captain, Jason Sugrue. This may well be the year that London Progress is forced to surrender its British League title but the depth of the club's development suggests that London Progress will be in the forefront of British table tennis for many years to come.
Jon Kaufman
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