Shakedown for table tennis

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 20

Shakedown for table tennis

By

CHRIS TOBIN

Peter Hirst means business when he says he wants to “grab” New Zealand table tennis “by the scruff of the neck and give it a bloody good shake.” For a little more than 14 years the 37-year-old Yorkshireman guided England’s table tennis: now, three months into his appointment as New Zealand coach, the shake-up is taking shape. He is planning a ladder type of system which caters for the beginner through to the international class player. But there are problems to overcome. “When I’ve been to New Zealand before I’ve found some of the best table tennis brains and facilities I’ve ever come across in the world, but they’re hellbent on destruction because they’re pointing the finger of suspicion all the time and saying ‘ah well, so and so can’t do that,’ but in some other aspect he might be brilliant.

“I don’t think the feeling is there from the whole country pulling together. Rivalry is very good, but there’s got to come a time when everybody pulls together and says ‘right, we’re going to do this for New Zealand,’ instead of ‘we’re going to do this for our club’.”

An advantage for Mr Hirst is his objectivity. Though based in Lower Hutt, where he lives with his wife and three children, he has no particular allegiance to any one player, club or association. Hence the candour. A

“A lot of administration here is bogged down by producing little bits of paper which get passed round. I don’t necessarily want to produce a worldclass international side. What I would prefer to produce is a scheme or system that will allow everybody a degree of help.

“The system should work for the benefit of everybody, rather than just for an international side.”

Peter Hirst has signed a five-year contact as the New Zealand Table Tennis Association’s full-time professional coach and yet his work permit is only for two years. For this rather uncertain future he left one of the best jobs in British table tennis and came 12,000 miles. The welfare of his children was one of the reasons.

“I genuinely believe New Zealand is a better environment to bring up kids. Another thing is that in England in many ways I had instigated the ideas I had wanted to instigate. I was getting to the stage where I’d arrive at a place and then I’d say to someone, ‘what am I doing here?’ and they would say, ‘you’re doing a diploma coaches course.’ All right then I’d just get out and do it. “Whereas here it’s fresh and alive and it’s ready.” Besides producing many

fine players in England, Mr Hirst initiated that country’s training scheme. “We took what was the mechanical principle of how you actually move and then applied it to table tennis. A lot of it is not my opinion; a lot of it is a proven mechanical principle of how it’s done. We blended that into table tennis activity and that is the scheme in operation in England and which is also happening in New Zealand to a lesser degree from my other trips here.

“It’s really a question of looking at how you play table tennis and saying, ‘how can we make that work for everybody?’ that is the novice who comes through that door and says, ‘I would like to play table tennis,’ right through to World Cup level.” For relaxation Mr Hirst plays squash and he says to play table tennis in his hours off would “eat you alive.” Squash is his contrast, but table tennis and, more especially, the people in the sport, remain his first love. “I find the subject of people playing table tennis fascinating. If you think of the various styles you see and look at what table tennis has, in my opinion, over all the other racket sports . . . it’s spin. “In you can attack

and defend the same as you can in squash or badminton, but you can’t spin the ball anything like you can in table tennis. “Then you think of all the shapes and sizes of people that you actually come across with all the different forms of personality that they’re trying to express out

there on that table ... I find that truly quite fascinating.” After the interview Peter Hirst, dressed in a dark suit, walks through Timaru’s Aorangi Stadium which is alive with players and officials involved in this week’s New Zealand championships. He looks like a man on a mission.