Worthing Table Tennis Club has launched a new Junior Team 1 Star event, giving more young players the opportunity to experience competitive team table tennis this season.

The Worthing TTC Junior Team 1 Star, taking place on Saturday 10 October, has been created to provide an additional opportunity for teams who are not taking part in this season’s Youth British Clubs League (YBCL), or in addition to Cadet/ JuniorBCL, as well as clubs looking for more opportunities for their junior players to gain valuable team match-play experience.

The event will feature two-player teams competing in a progressive knockout format, designed to ensure that every team gets plenty of matches throughout the day.

Rather than teams being eliminated after just one or two matches, the format allows players to continue competing, gain valuable experience and enjoy the unique environment of team table tennis.

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Table Tennis England’s national league structure for Youth is as follows:

The strongest teams play national weekends at YouthBCL, and the teams below that level play in JuniorBCL and/or CadetBCL on a localised basis, with less travel, lower costs and in a more flexible format.

Entries for Cadet and JuniorBCL are OPEN and details can be seen here. The deadline for JuniorBCL is Wed 16 Sept, and the deadline for CadetBCL is Wed 28 Oct.

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For Worthing TTC Head Coach Matt Porter, the idea came from wanting to create more opportunities for young players to compete.

“As soon as we saw that our boys’ team wasn’t going to be in the Youth British Clubs League, my first thought was, ‘What can we do for our boys and the other teams that haven’t got in?’”

“We know how valuable team table tennis is for young players, having won our division last year. It gives them the opportunity to compete together, support each other and experience something very different from individual competition.”

To complement the opportunities available in Cadet and JuniorBCL, Worthing TTC set about creating an additional event that could bring teams together and provide meaningful competitive experience.

“We wanted to offer a similar team experience and, most importantly, provide matches,” Porter explained. “There are lots of players who want to play team table tennis, so we thought, why not create another opportunity for them?”

The new competition forms part of Worthing TTC’s wider commitment to developing junior players through competition and providing opportunities to progress both on and off the table.

The club would particularly like to thank the Table Tennis England Events Team and TAP, including Neil Rogers and John Mackey, for their support in helping Worthing TTC develop the event and supporting opportunities for additional junior team competition.

“It’s great to have that support when a club identifies an opportunity to do something different and provide more competition for young players,” said Porter.

The event has already attracted entries from Jersey and Guernsey, alongside teams from Worthing TTC, giving the competition an international feel from its very first staging.

Lisa De Poerck from Jersey Table Tennis said: “I just want to say a huge thank you to Worthing TTC for the effort they have put into working with Table Tennis England to get this tournament up and running so quickly. The Jersey boys are really looking forward to coming to it after not making it into YBCL this year, and we’ll be entering two teams.

“It’s fantastic to see an event like this being created to give young players another opportunity to play team table tennis. The quick turnaround from the initial idea to getting the tournament scheduled has been brilliant. We hope to see a lot of engagement with this event and we really appreciate everything Worthing TTC has done to make it happen.”

Worthing TTC hopes the Junior Team 1 Star will become an important addition to the junior competition calendar, providing teams with another chance to compete, develop and enjoy the unique experience of playing together as a team.