Morpeth facing a golden future

By Dave Brown

10 January 2011

Morpeth School will host the British and Japanese table tennis teams prior to the London 2012 Olympics, thanks to a state-of-the-art centre being built at the site.

For years the school has been providing a stream of table tennis talent thanks to the coaching of Grant Solder and his team.

Now it will be envy of the country with one of the best table tennis facilities anywhere in the country.

Building work on the project is being partly funded by the English Table Tennis Association and Sport England, and from the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

It is expected to be completed in September after which it will be a centre for the best players in London and the wider community.

Richard Yule, chief executive of the English Table Tennis Association, told East End Life that Morpeth had become a flagship for the sport.

“We have seen table tennis add value to life at the school,” he said.

“We  had been looking for a potential development in London and we were looking at where we could develop a quality table tennis facility which would be available to the community in the evenings.

“This was an opportunity during the redevelopment of Morpeth School to create a partnership to provide a dedicated table tennis hall that will become a strong table tennis club that everybody can enjoy the benefits of.

“We are very excited about it and it’s a real boost for east London sport.”

Sport England is investing £500,000 into the project that could see as many as 40 table tennis tables in play at peak times.

A further £653,000 will come from the BSF programme.

While building work progresses, the borough’s players are also growing their reputations and the top youngsters are already gearing up for the South East England finals in London later this month – a step on the road to the national schools event that both Morpeth and Globe Primary School excelled at last year.

Coach Grant Solder said it was a good time to be playing table tennis in Tower Hamlets.

“Morpeth’s new table tennis centre really is the icing on the cake from my perspective as the whole community can benefit,” he said.

“These facilities will take table tennis to another level in east London and give the opportunity for everyone of all levels and ages to become members and take part.”

A delegation from the Japanese table tennis team is expected later this month to look at the project, added Solder whose young charges excelled at the East London County schools team championships.

Morpeth showed their strength in depth by winning the under-16 boys team event comfortably against Oaklands. The school’s under-16 girls, who finished 11th in last year’s world championships, won convincingly against St Thomas More.

Morpeth’s under-13 girls played particularly well, defeating Eastbury (Barking) 6-2 and Central Foundation and John Roan 5-3.

Tower Hamlets were also victorious in the boys under-13 event and the under-11s with Globe victorious. Globe defeated Eastbury school to become the youngest ever county champions in the under-13 age group.

Meanwhile Jamie Dignum, 11, from Globe school continues to go from strength to strength and has been selected for the England under-15 youth development squad which is trained at Lilleshall. Ten players from the Morpeth coaching programme have also been selected for the London regional squad.

They are: Harriet Taylor, Majada Yasmin, Sally Hoang, Sayeeda Miah, Ashley Facey-Thompson, Jamie Dignum, Rijul Roychoudhury, Harry Fang, Yusef Ahmed and Chantal Wilson.