Author Archives: Chris Main

Ayrshire School Championships

Fantastic day of results from our junior players at Belmount Academy, Ayr for this year’s Ayrshire School Championships. Players from NATTC won 5 of the 7 events with plenty of our players making their way to the latter stages of events. Adam Nicol finished runners up in U12 boys plate event, Kayser Collins finished r-up in U14 Boys plate event and Winners and runners up are as follows ;

U12 Boys – Winner – Chad Duncan
U12 Girls – R – Up – Holly McNamara
U14 Boys – Winner – Martin Johnson
U16 Boys – Winner – Robin Wilson
U16 Boys – R – Up – Ryan Henry
U18 Boys – Winner – Andy MacPherson
U18 Boys – R – Up – James Kennedy
Junior Doubles – Winners – A Bogle / D Lynch

Club Merchandise

We have got over 200 keyrings, pint glasses & wine glasses with NATTC logo on them which will be handed out to club members to sell to friends and family members as part of our fundraising initiative. We hope to raise as much as possible to help assist our junior players with training, competition & equipment costs. Thanks to Craig McLellan who has worked hard in producing these and we will be handing them out to members in the next fortnight.

Wongs Youth Open

14 players from our club competed in this years Wongs Youth Open at Bathgate Academy. A very successful day from start to finish with a number of players winning their banded events and age categories which rewards the hard work these players are putting in at training. Thanks to the parents who travelled up and supported & thanks to Chris Barclay for coaching all day. To view pictures from the event please visit http://goo.gl/09epOU

Winner u 600 – R Melrose
Winner u 650 – R Henry
Winner u 850 – D Lynch
Winner u11s – J Johnson

Martin Johnson – SF u13 boys.
Jill Taylor – 3rd U18 girls.
Patric Hollywood – R – Up u 400.
Chad Duncan – SF u11s.

Action on Sectarianism Partnership

North Ayrshire Table Tennis Club and Action on Sectarianism have become partners where we will be using their online resources, sharing articles and finding idea’s to use from their website. Chris Main, recently written a blog for their website on our anti sectarianism project where he detailed how and why we are running our project. . You can view the blog here – https://www.actiononsectarianism.info/smashing-sectarianism-off-the-table. We have an @AoSScotland twitter feed on all our projects pages and if you would like to keep up to date with the recent happenings, different projects and the work each community group is doing, please follow them.

AoS website will be the destination website for information and resources for tackling sectarianism in Scotland. By working with community groups, councils, organisations, schools, businesses, government agencies and academics, we have reached out to anyone interested in taking action to bring the best of their knowledge and expertise to Action on Sectarianism.

Action on Sectarianism will not tell you what to do, but it will share with you both tried and tested and innovative resources to build your knowledge and confidence to take action. For others, it will support what they are already doing. For the first time through the AoS Network there will be a place for those who are inspired to take action to connect, to virtually come together to share ideas, information and debate all things antisectarianism.

Objectives

Scottish society is better informed about the causes of sectarianism, the advice and educational tools available and what they can do to affect change.

Children, young people and adults are better informed about the causes of sectarianism and preventative solutions.

Children, young people and adults are better informed about local educational provision, advice and guidance on sectarianism.

The website gives practitioners and activists the opportunity to share the best of resources and current practice through a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), leading to improved practice interventions.

Practitioners and activists are better informed on the latest policy and practice developments relating to sectarianism, leading to more accurate information and advice for children, young people and adults.

To ensure sectarianism is not framed as a purely male, west coast or football related, providing a national platform and resource to help communities and practitioners address the issue locally.

WoS Junior League

Impressive day of results for our 6 North Ayrshire teams at the 3rd and 4th rounds of matches of the WoS Junior League. Our Division 1 teams are currently sitting in 3rd and 4th place behind East Kilbride A and South Ayrshire. Division 2 team, North Ayrshire C, won both of their matches against Boys Brigade A and East Kilbride C 3-2 and are currently sitting in 5th place. Division 4 team of Holly McNamara, Eva Herrington & Cameron Mills are in 3rd place after a 5-4 win and 8-1 win against East Kilbride & Joe Wilson respectively. For full results and player averages visit www.wosttl.org.uk

North of Scotland Open

Jill Taylor and Chris Main made the 170 mile journey to Aberdeen Sports Village for this year’s North of Scotland Open with both players hoping to work their way into the latter stages of their respective events. Chris was top seed heading into the Men’s Singles event and worked his way through the group stages and early knock-out rounds to set up a semi final against no 4 seed Yaser Razouk. Yaser put up a great fight, however Chris managed to scrap the win 11-9 in the fourth set to meet Chris Wheeler who dispatched Colin Dalgleish in the other semi final. Wheeler played superb table tennis to beat Chris Main in straight sets to be crowned North of Scotland Open Champion. Chris and partner Colin Dalgleish combined brilliantly to win the Mens Doubles title beating Yaser & Chris Wheeler 12-10 in the deciding set.

Good start to the year for Jill Taylor who finished runners up in the Junior Girls and reached quarter-finals in the Womens Singles. Jill who was seeded 3rd in the Junior Girls event beat Hannah Robb, Alisha Khalid, Caitlin Cameron & Abigail Paterson to finish runners up behind top seed an eventual winner Lucy Elliott. In the Women’s Singles, Jill finished 2nd in her opening group and meet Lucy Elliott in the quarter finals. Lucy proved too strong beating Jill 10, 5 & 8. Full full report and pictures please visit Table Tennis Scotland’s website –www.tabletennisscotland.co.uk.

UKCC Level 1 Course

10 volunteers and players from NATTC have began their UKCC Level 1 coaching course which has been organised to take place at St Matthews Academy on Jan 10th and February 28th. UKCC and Table Tennis Scotland Coaching Director, Paul Jackson lead the course and worked through the course working on areas such as warm ups, setting up a training session, health & safety and coaching points on the basic techniques. Feedback has been great from all applicants and will be an advantage for our club to have more qualified coaches to assist with sessions and classes. The 2nd day of the course will take place on Saturday 28th February where everyone on the course will be assessed on a 20 minute training session that they will deliver.

British League

The 2nd weekend of Senior British League was held at Halton TTC, Widnes on 13th and 14th December with our team of Andy Macpherson, Chris Barclay, Jordan McGinlay & Martin Johnson up against it from the word go, playing the top 3 teams. First 2 matches resulted in 2 tough losses, 7-1 v Rotherham with Andy MacP winning the only match and 8-0 loss v Guernsey. The match versus Warrington resulted in a 7-1 defeat with Martin Johnson picking up the only win for North Ayrshire. The last match of the weekend was against home side Halton TTC which finished in a 4-4 draw. Martin & Jordan both winning deuce in the fifth set to secure a point for North Ayrshire. Next round of matches are on Sunday January 18th where we will play Bankfield and Drumchapel. For league tables, results and player averages visit Table Tennis 365 website  –http://goo.gl/2suJz8.

Success at Scottish Primary Schools

Martin Johnson, Jamie Johnson, Chad Duncan, Patric Hollywood, Grant McLellan, Cameron Mills, Ryan Watt, Eva Herrington & Holly McNamara all attended the Scottish Primary School Championships at Bathgate Academy. 48 boys and 20 girls competed where the top 4 of each category would be selected to play for Scotland at British Primary School Championships. Martin Johnson lived up to expectation, seeded no1 heading into the competition he worked his way through the groups and knockout stages to reach the final where he meet Yifie Fang of Aberdeen. Martin played top class table tennis to win in 3 straight sets, 13-11, 11-9, 11-3 to become Scottish Primary School Champion 2014.

Jamie Johnson, aged 9, reached the last 16 of the boys singles losing out to Borui Chen 3-2 in a closely fought match. Jamie teamed up with his brother Martin in the doubles event and showed that they make up a great doubles partnership. The boys overcame tough competition from Chen / Paterson in the semi finals and Fang / Woliski in the final to win the event and be crowned Scottish PS Doubles Champions. First brothers to ever win this event?

All of our NATTC players performed well and showed great attitude during the competition. Eva & Holly won several matches in the girls event and with 2 years left they will be looking to improve on their results next time around. Chad Duncan had several impressive results en route to the Consolation final where he eventually lost to a Drumchapel player in the final 3-2.

Three Towns TT Festival

Three Towns TT Festival was held at St Matthews Academy on Friday November 28th where over 25 pupils from local schools competed against each other in 3 different categories. The experienced category was a group of 8 players who have been attending the club sessions for over a year was won by Jamie Johnson (Glencairn). Runners up was Patric Hollywood (Caledonia) and 3rd place was Chad Duncan (St Anthony’s). Grade 1 event was won by Harvey Newall (Ardeer) with Declan McCoy (Hayocks) beaten finalist.

Grade 2 event was won by Zak Leith of St Anthonys with Michael Donnelly (St Anthonys) finishing in runners up. This was a great event which was the finale of our 8 week block of classes which we ran in St Anthonys, Hayocks, Ardeer and Glecairn. Hopefully we see some of these players attending the club sessions in the future and special thanks to Bruce McMaster of Active Schools for helping with the planning and organising of this event. For more pictures please visit our facebook page – http://goo.gl/nND6ds.