Ellenborough Table Tennis Club

A blast from the past, Sylvia Tyler ex General Secretary and 200 Club organiser.

Keast Brothers - Nic, Thomas & James

Having moved from the busy life of London to the slower life of Lincolnshire, it was inevitable that my love of table tennis would surface.  An off the cuff remark by my daughter Lesley. “If you don’t start a club here the boys will never learn how to play table tennis”, and the Market Rasen Junior Table Tennis Club was born.  Starting with a small band of very young children in the Market Rasen Cricket Club pavilion (Autumn 2006) and then moving to the De Aston Sports Centre, with a regular weekly coaching session at De Aston School and a Community evening for adults, which has teams in the Grimsby and Lincoln Leagues.  We organise a National Cadet League Venue and now run a National Junior League here in Rasen with teams travelling from all parts of Lincolnshire and surrounding counties.  We also run regular County Training sessions for juniors at the Sports Centre.  The club currently has Veteran teams in the Premier Men’s and Ladies divisions of the British League as well as a Junior team which has recently qualified for the Junior British League.

The local paper the Market Rasen Mail does us proud up here and in the paper on Wednesday 21st December we were pleased to say that Lesley and Steven Keast’s 3 boys performing as a team “Rasen Racers” – their results were recorded in the Rasen Mail.  All are pupils at De Aston School and will be representing their school in future school competition.  After the 2nd days session at a National Cadet League ran in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire (that’s our closest now) they were lying in 3rd position in the top division.

Keast brothers triumph at the table

A trio of talented brothers are taking the table tennis world by storm.  James, Thomas and Nic Keast have defied their tender years to finish in third place at the halfway stage of the National Cadet League First Division, representing Market Rasen Table Tennis Club.

In the picture from left to right Nic 11, Thomas and James 13 (twins) had played outstandingly in this National U’15s event at Wellingborough, where expectations were to try and avoid relegation.  Their delight in achieving two wins and two draws, with only one loss, was typified with a 3-3 draw with Rugby, a team who had never conceded more than one game in a match prior to the weekend.    Rugby, boasting three players in England’s top 100, had been too strong for all comers.  However, Thomas, playing the best table tennis of his short career, beat both highly ranked Paul Lewis and Anshul Satsangi, who tasted defeat for the one and only time that week-end.   Thomas was supported by James, who had an equally impressive win against Niall Herbert, ranked some 70 places above him.  Nic, playing four years above his age group, assisted with three vital wins, which could have doubled with a little more experience.

All three boys are training with the Regional Squad each week and Nic has been called into the England development squad.  James and Thomas make their County debuts next week and it will be interesting to see how they cope at this very high standard.