Amongst the photographs held in the archive store at St Leonards-on-Sea, a remarkable discovery was made when an envelope was found to hold 61 microfiche sheets of ETTA handbooks dating from the 1927/28 season up to 1978/79.

They were sent to a firm which specialises in digitising different material, Microform Imaging Ltd, who did an excellent job in converting the microfiche into a readable form and can be viewed in our Document Archive.

There are some years when handbooks were not produced, there were none between 1929 and 32 nor during the war years. Otherwise, it is rich and interesting record of more than 50 years of the Association’s history.

The first handbook is described as ‘Handbook of the English Table Tennis Association and English Language Handbook of the International Table Tennis Federation’, costing 1/-, the equivalent of five pence. It contained details of ETTA officials and members, affiliated leagues and bodies, a brief 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 lawn tennis scoring system.

As the Association expanded, so too did the handbook, and there was more on Local Leagues which included their clubs and secretaries, as well as reports by the ETTA President, Chairman and Treasurer plus annual accounts. In 1934/35 there is reference to the first Women’s Committee with sections in the north and south, you could buy a dozen Barna table tennis balls for 4/- and a Barna bat for 5/-. Or you could get an armour-plated table with the surface completely covered with solid steel plate!

By 1938/39 there were 39 Open Championships in England, a duplicator was bought for £15 and for those who remember stamp duty on cheques, it cost the Association £3 17s 8d. Other expenditure included £2 to affiliate to the ITTF, total income from affiliation fees amounted to £676 12s 6d.

1946/47 saw a slimmed down handbook due to a paper shortage after the Second World War, with the record emphasis on Local League details. However, it wasn’t long before the handbook and also the number of Local Leagues, clubs and players not only reached pre-war numbers but surpassed them as the 1948/49 handbook shows. There were now an impressive 5,000 clubs in 236 Local Leagues with 75,000 players.

Original copies of all handbooks up to 2016 when the last one was printed, are held by the Association in the archive store. However, to have all these earlier ones now available to all is a wonderful asset. I thank whoever had the foresight to preserve them on microfiche.

So, whether you want to find out more about your league, county or general history of the Association, have a wander through this fascinating archive.

The archives committee express their appreciation to all who have helped in the past, including Graham Frankel for scanning all Table Tennis Review and Table Tennis News magazines, Graham Trimming for  photographing and cataloguing much of the archives equipment, Eric Hall who has transferred all the video tapes onto digital files and constantly adds more recent recordings, John Ruderham for his research work and establishing when Local Leagues were founded, Colin Clemett for his record keeping and immense knowledge and invaluable advice.

If you would be interested in helping preserve the Association’s history, then please contact me to discuss further.