Last night the POPPs team, joined by a sprinkling of partners, enjoyed a pre-season social at the Lord Nelson at Luddenden after which we repaired to the home of our Secretary, Mieszek, for a homemade barszcz and bread supper. The barszcz , a Polish beetroot soup, was absolutely delicious. The get together was primarily social but needless to say a lot of the conversation was on table tennis and tactics. One suggestions was that we all play in drag to distract the opposition team but John, an old Halifax TT League hand, told us that this had already been tried and the individual concerned was banned. Who’d have thought. In Halifax of all places!

We now have a team selection strategy. There are six registered players and the idea is that we all get an even share of the matches, as far as is practicable. This means we should get about 10 matches each over the season, or every other match week. This may mean that we do not pick the strongest team each week but this is not what the exercise is about for us. In any case, it wouldn’t be clear what the strongest team would be as, with one exception, John, we are all of a similar standard and any one of us is capable of beating most of the others on a good day with a following wind.

The first match is next Monday 6th October at the Halifax Table Tennis Centre against HxTTC A.R.K. It is their home night so we are hoping to get some ideas on how to host a match, how to umpire, how to work the electronic scoring system and generally what is involved. Our first two matches are away so hopefully we will be ready to run the show by the time our first home match comes round. Full reports will be available however embarrassing! There may be triumphs, there will be tears, there will be humiliations no doubt. For those of us that still need it the experience  will be character building.

If I can persuade Julie to part with her barszcz recipe I will pass it on. If you can’t wait, although it won’t be as good, here is Delia Smith’s Polish Beetroot Soup recipe.