As the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026 Presented by ACN returns to OVO Arena Wembley this month, a fascinating letter has been discovered shedding light on how the last Wembley Championships may have been funded.
It was 1954 – the year twins Diane & Rosalind Rowe won the Women’s Doubles gold on their 21st birthday. And while history shows Wembley was indeed the venue, that may only have been the result of a unique appeal to table tennis clubs.
According to an old ETTA letter discovered tucked inside an old magazine, the Association was by no means certain it could afford to host the event, which the ITTF had invited it to do.
The letter came to light when it was found by Graham Frankel, who is currently scanning copies of old magazines and programmes to help us digitise the archives.
From ETTA Chairman Ivor Montagu and Secretary AK Vint, and sent out from the offices in Trafalgar Square, the letter sets out the cost of hosting the Worlds and asks table tennis clubs for their help.
Although undated, it is likely to have been sent in 1951 or 1952, as it refers to raising money during 1952 and 1953.
Each club is asked for at least £1 to help cover an estimated £4,000 shortfall if England were to host the 1954 Worlds.
Assuming the letter was written in 1951, £1 equates to around £27 today and £4,000 would be more than £110,000.
In the letter, Montagu and Vint set out how the World Championships had grown since it was first hosted in London in 1926, noting that: “When the Championships started, running them meant hospitality to players of only around half-a-dozen nations.
“Last time they were held in Wembley (in 1948), more than twenty came. The International Federation now embraces Table Tennis Associations of more than fifty countries.”
Noting that the most recent World Championships had all received “outside financial backing”, it goes on to set out a minimum deficit of £4,000 – even allowing for good ticket sales – and adds “nobody outside table tennis is going to give it to us”.
It reads: “If we do hold the event here it can only be if table tennis supporters think it worthwhile to the tune of raising a sum of this description.
“If table tennis supporters throughout the country want to, this can be done easily. BUT DO THEY WANT TO?”
It goes on to say: “Obviously such a sum would be a big one to vote or allot from club funds just like that. But would it be difficult to raise, say by one or two special handicaps, dances or whist drives, directed to this purpose in 1952 and 1953 – ten shillings a year?”
Urging club committees to discuss the matter and “get weaving and undertake to do it”, the letter also notes that only the clubs can deliver this amount – not the National Executive Committee, AGM or Counties and Leagues.
It also notes that “there is nothing like watching . . . the World Championships for inspiring the younger generation with the will to match the great stars of the past”.
Without supporting documents to cross-reference, it is not certain how much, if any, was raised from the clubs. But the fact the 1954 Worlds went ahead in England’s capital – the last time London hosted – suggests it was at least partially successful.
Read the document in full:
