Steve Morley Wins XD at Scottish Parkinson’s International

Club member Steve Morley competed at his biggest tournament to date earlier this month, The Scottish Parkinson’s International which he won the Gold medal in the Class 2 Mixed Doubles event. The competition was held at Inverclyde National Sports Centre, Largs and was well attended with 46 players, all of whom have Parkinson’s participating in the event. In addition to a large contingent of UK players there were also players from Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Germany and Chile.

Read about Steve’s results below and how he started back playing table tennis again after a 40 year break.

Class 2 Mixed Doubles
A thrilling 5 set final eventually won by Steve Morley (SCO) & Lynn Arnot (SCO) 11-7 in the deciding set, with some great play on show from both teams. A well deserved win in the final after Steve & Lynn lost out to Brendan and Gill in the initial group stage.

Gold: Steve Morley (SCO) & Lynn Arnot (SCO)
Silver: Brendan Hawdon (SCO) & Gill Shaw (SCO)
Bronze: Robert King (ENG) & Sandra Muller (GER) / Kenneth Booth (ENG) & Lynn Tearse (ENG)

Video from TT Scotland live stream of Steve & Lynn’s win in the Mixed doubles final – (1) Facebook Live | Facebook

Class 2 Men’s Singles Event
Steve qualified out of his initial group in 2nd place after a countback was needed, he qualified for the quarter final stage. In the QF Steve played a great match, however lost out 3-2 to eventual winner John Duddy in a close match.

Class 1 Men’s Doubles Event
Phil Yeadon and Steve Morley teamed up in the Men’s Doubles event and were rather unfortunate to find themselves in the Class 1 event considering both players played in the Class 2 singles event. However, they enjoyed playing with no pressure to win but were well beaten in both their group matches. However they had a closer game in the 5th/6th playoff v Brian Carson and John Duddy.

Steve started playing table tennis at the Air Cadets when he was a teenager and didn’t pick up a bat again for 40 years, until he read research saying TT is good for slowing down symptoms of Parkinson’s. Steve got in touch with NATTC then found out about the dedicated Parkinson’s sessions at South Ayrshire TTC, Mossblown.

Steve has been training 4-5 days a week over the last 6-12 months and is great example of improving as fast as you can and playing as much as you can at the various clubs in the West of Scotland. Steve plays at the South Ayrshire TTC, People with Parkinson’s Coached Session, Irvine TTC, North Ayrshire TT, Drumchapel & Largs TTC. Training with a lot of people and different playing styles is always beneficial with Steve enjoying getting tips / coaching from different coaches.

Next up is the ITTF Parkinson’s World Championships in Crete in November, which he will no doubt be training hard towards, World Parkinson’s Table Tennis Championships – ITTF Foundation

Steve updates his own website with results, training and thoughts on his table tennis and other interests. Read an excerpt from an article below and check out his website for more articles A Gold Medal At Last! | Ayrshire Tiger (wordpress.com)

“And so to Sunday afternoon and the final event of the tournament the Mixed Doubles. When the event was first announced I persuaded Lynn who is relatively newly diagnosed to enter. At first she wasn’t keen as she was completely new to playing table tennis and as concerned that she wasn’t good enough. But thankfully she did enter and won a silver medal in the Ladies Class 2 Singles on Saturday! We got off to a shaky start losing our first match but then won our other two group matches to finish second and qualify for a semi-final place. We subsequently won and found ourselves in the final against the pair who had beaten us in the group stage. A tough 5 set match followed which we won! I really cannot describe the feeling of euphoria on winning that final point! A special mention must go to Andre Sonnet for his encouragement in between games and particularly his advice on who we should make sure I served to – as a match strategy it was spot on! I wasn’t aware at the time (which was probably a good thing!) but the match was live streamed on the Table Tennis Scotland Facebook page”