Under the photos in the Archive Shop in St. Leonards-on-Sea, a remarkable discovery was made when an envelope was found to contain 61 microfiche magazines of Etta manuals from the 1927/28 to 1978/79 season.
They were sent to a company that specializes in digitizing different materials, Microrom Imagd Ltd, who has done excellent work when converting the microfiche into a readable form and can be viewed in us Document archive.
There are a few years in which manuals were not produced, there were none between 1929 and 32 nor during the war years. Otherwise it is a rich and interesting record of more than 50 years of the history of the association.
The first handbook is described as ‘Handbook of the English Table Tennis Association and English-language Handbook of the International Table Tennis Federation’, that 1/cost, the equivalent of five pence. It contained details of Etta officials and members, affiliated competitions and bodies, a short history and the Constitution, Etta laws, details of players who had represented England plus records of sanctioned open tournaments. The ITTF section also has some interesting information, especially the section on alternative laws using the grass tennis scoring system.
As the association expanded, it also did the handbook, and there was more about local competitions, including their clubs and secretaries, as well as reports from the Etta President, chairman and treasurer Plus annual accounts. In 1934/35 there was a reference to the first women’s committee with sections in the north and south, you can buy a dozen Barna table tennis balls for 4/-and a Barna-bat for 5/-. Or you can get a armor for the surface completely covered with a fixed steel plate!
By 1938/39 there were 39 open championships in England, a duplicator was purchased for £ 15 and for those who remember the seal rights at Checks, it cost the £ 3 17s 8d association. Other expenses include £ 2 to apply to the ITTF, the total income from affiliation costs amounted to £ 676 12S 6D.
1946/47 saw a removed handbook due to a paper shortage after the Second World War, with the emphasis on details of the local competition. However, it was not long before the manual and also the number of local competitions, clubs and players not only reached pre -war songs, but also surpassed them as the 1948/49 manual. There were now impressive 5,000 clubs in 236 local competitions with 75,000 players.
Original copies of all manuals until 2016 when the latter was printed are held by the association in the Archief Shop. However, it is a wonderful asset to have all this earlier now available to everyone. I thank who the foresight to keep them on microfiche.
So whether you want to know more about your competition, province or general history of the association, Hold a walk through this fascinating archive.
The Archives Committee expresses their appreciation for anyone who has helped in the past, including Graham Frankel for scanning Tennis assessment table And Table Tennis magazines, Graham trimming for photographing and cataloging many of the Archive equipmentEric Hall who has transferred all video tapes to digital files and is constantly adding more recent recordings, John Ruderham for his research work and settled when local competitions were founded, Colin Clemett for his archiving and immense knowledge and invaluable advice.
If you were interested in retaining the history of the association, please contact me to discuss further.
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