The drinks were taken in the majestic garden in this exclusive area of Halifax and guests were able to relax in the warmth of a May evening. The massive food spread miraculously appeared, plates were filled to the brim and conversation ceased as the assembled throng sank their teeth into food which would not have disgraced a top restaurant.

Then the conversation resumed, mixing table tennis exploits and hard luck stories with life stories and family exploits. Then, as the evening slipped by and the darkness fell, the guests disappeared into the night, grateful for the hospitality of Peter & Pam and realising the need to get plenty of table tennis in during the following week to work off any excesses. Once again POPPS showed itself to be champions at socialising, whilst not yet reaching those heights on the green table.

We know that the summer league will be tough, but we approach it with confidence, knowing that some defeats will not slow down our learning curve.

Like the English rugby, football and cricket teams, Popps are becoming expert in finding positives from defeats. This is a well honoured tradition dating back to Dunkirk of course.  We all agree that we are doing pretty well given out lack of experience and that we play as well as many of our opponents some of the time at least. What we need is more consistency and then some of our narrow defeats in games and sets will become victories. My personal response to this has been to moderate my game a little and be rather more conservative and circumspect. I can’t say this has made that much difference yet and I wonder if this is the right approach. One thing I am sure of. A major part of the problem is lack of technique. I am tempted to let up on attacking shots because, although some come off very well and win points, many (most?) just go off the end of the table or just clip the the net (occassionally they land on an adjacent table!). Sometimes a shot is missed because it wasn’t really on. But if it is on I can’t see any advantage in not going for it. Of course, you need to make the right judgement about what is on and what isn’t and that comes with experience and being realistic about your abilities. I’m not sure my attacking shots will improve by not playing them when I should be and I feel this is what I am beginning to do. So, my New Year resolution for the second half is to improve shot selection, go for an attacking shot whenever it is the right shot to go for and don’t pull back or be hesitant, and improve consitency by improving technique rather than holding back when the chances appear.

The section on planning your training may be a little more controversial as he makes it clear that, in his opinion, it is not worth spending much time practicing strokes you are not going to use in a match. But surely you don’t play those strokes in matches because they are poor or you lack confidence in them and not practising them just means, obviously, they will not improve and you will never be able to play anything but your preferred game, win or lose. However, on thinking about this a little more I think it depends on what it is you want to achieve and why you are playing in the first place. There is no doubt that even our fairly restricted repertoire of strokes could be much improved and a great deal of progress can still be made just developing what we already have. As Gregg says, “you have more potential than you think” and I’m sure this is true of all of us. It just depends how far you want to develop that potential. Personally I want to get as good as I can get within the constraints of my time, other commitments and boredom threshold if I play too much. I’m aiming for about twice a week on average. I would prefer an all round game where I can vary the style of play, tactics and shots, if possible but this will depend on good coaching, another of Greg’s tips. We are very fortunate we have this already thanks to Alan.