England star Paul Drinkhall and Welsh wizard Ryan Jenkins played a thrilling exhibition match at Maidstone TTC and then spent the rest of the evening knocking with and coaching club members of all ages.

Two young players have a memory to last a lifetime, joining Ryan as he sought a little help to claw back a two-set deficit against Paul in a match filled with superb rallies and lots of banter between the players.

Ryan managed to make it 2-2, but Paul won the decider and the crowd, including Maidstone Borough Mayor Cllr John Perry, showed their appreciation before the two stars also gave a high-octane multiball demonstration.

Paul, who is the defending Men’s Singles national champion, said: “It’s been brilliant, a great turnout. They’ve done a great job getting lots of local players – lots of different ages as well, which is brilliant to see. They’ve all got on the table afterwards and look like they’ve been having a good time.

“I think for the community it’s fantastic, to see lots of different people, different ages, different backgrounds – it’s great to have a place to come together.

“It’s a great venue, lots of tables – great facilities. Hopefully they get some good table tennis players from it, but if not it’s fantastic for the community anyway.”

Cllr Perry said: “We want to support a healthy community and encourage all sports in the borough, and this is brilliant because it plays a role in the community and that’s very important – you get many youngsters playing here and that’s our future, really.”

The club came about thanks to an initiative by the Maidstone League, which was in decline due to the disappearance of multi-table venues.

The league seized an opportunity to establish a club at a new sports hall at the School of Science and Technology (SST), which opened in 2020.

This provided the opportunity for match practice and junior coaching which had been absent in the area in recent years.

Once the school had agreed to accommodate the club – and provide equipment storage – there was still the challenge of the club raising £20,000 to fund 15 new tables, equipment and to cover hall hire without an existing membership base.

With support from the league, Bribar Sports and contributions from past and present players, they hit their target.

And the club has already met another target – it reached the milestone of 50 members before the official opening night had even been held.

They are already looking to extend their time in the hall beyond the initial Tuesday night Junior coaching and senior practice session (6-9.30pm) and the Thursday night session (7-10pm) for general matchplay.

Treasurer Adrian Hall said: “For many years, we’ve been hiring school halls for our local tournaments, but we had nowhere for coaching and regular matchplay, and the biggest problem we had was school halls had no facilities to store tables and surrounds.

“This is a completely new build at SST and they’ve been good enough to give us storage facilities.

“We budgeted that with £20,000 that would keep us going for a year and by the end of the year we would have, hopefully, 50 paid-up members. In fact, in the first month, we’ve now got our 50th paid-up member.

“So we’re way ahead of schedule and looking to hire more time and (have) more volunteers to come and help.”

The project also received backing from Table Tennis England, with Area Manager Alan Lane helping the club work to achieve Premier Club status, create a Constitution and set up a club website using the TTClubs management platform, as well as currently supporting a further funding bid to secure more resources for junior coaching activities.