The Lions Sports Day for the Disabled

The Lions have been running a Sports Day for the Disabled at The King John School in Benfleet for some years. It is a multi-sport and inter-club competition for all disabilities. In 2012 they approached SDTTL for assistance in running the Table Tennis. Somehow, I was volunteered! My task was to schedule and run a Singles Competition for Standing and Wheelchair competitors. In the early days: Runnymede kindly loaned us two tables for the event; we had barriers from Hullbridge and ; Charles Sweeney and George Reeves assisted at one of the Singles events. Recently Hullbridge TTC have loaned tables for the table tennis and table cricket, and Rawreth Juniors have loaned the barriers.

It was quite stressful getting the early events completed, as everyone wanted to take part in the other sports as well, but we still had to have a final result in time for the medal presentation. During the first competition there were several who had not been listed, but wanted to take part but, in reality, were unlikely to be able to play a rally, so I suggested that we use a robot for them at the next Sports Day. That proved very popular and in view of the stress involved in running the Singles, my “Lion” helpers suggested that we only use the robot in future. So that is what we have done ever since. Each competitor is allowed a few balls to work out the line of fire and hitting point and then we count 25 balls that they have to try hitting, and depending on their ability, they score by hitting the ball into the scoring area of the other half of the table, or even hitting it at all. They all rise to the challenge. The Wheelchair competitors sometimes find it difficult getting their wheelchairs in a suitable position but we normally get there in the end.

It has been a privilege, as well as a humbling, exhilarating and exhausting experience running these competitions. Their enthusiasm and determination should be a lesson to all of us. The two performances that really stand out were one before Covid and one last year. In both instances the competitors were Sight Impaired. Both doubted whether they could hit a ball because they couldn’t see the balls at all. I explained that they could do it by listening to the “Pop” as the ball left the robot and then the bounce that would give them the line and we would then help them to get the hitting height, so then it was a case of remembering the timing from Pop, Bounce to Hit. Having helped them get adjusted, each one hit all 25 balls into the scoring area on the other side of the table, which none of the sighted competitors had managed! They were as thrilled as we were, but what was even more astounding, was that the person who did it last year told me that he could tell the difference between the sound of a ball bouncing on the table and one bouncing on the floor when there were several other events and background music in the Sports Hall!

This year there didn’t seem to be quite as many taking part, but we still had about 60 do so. One of them told me that attendances at their clubs were down since Covid and that one club had lost its facilities, so it’s not only league table tennis and my current sport of Short Mat Bowls that is down on numbers! One highlight was a surprise appearance of Liam Squirrel who tried to demonstrate playing against the robot at full speed, with variable success. I did discover one possible reason for him not achieving the expected perfection and that was that a batch of balls I had been given proved to be not only unbalanced- one rolled in ever decreasing circles on the table until it stopped and several proved to be far from spherical which must have affected their expected trajectory!

At the end of the day all those who took part thoroughly enjoyed themselves which is mainly due to the enormous effort put in by the Lions assisted by the various contributions from SDTTL. If anyone should be interested in attending next year, presuming that there will be another Sports Day, please let me know and I’ll advise date and time.

Paul Reed