Brisbane Table Tennis: Built and Sustained by Volunteers
There were lots of people who contributed their blood, sweat, and maybe a few tears to get the Brisbane Table Tennis Windsor Centre designed and built.
The Planning Committee for the Stadium are a special group:
A. Ewing
K. Woodward
J. Milinkovic
R. McClintock
B.King-Koi
B. Ford
I. Carver
M. McShane
D. Clark
A big thank you goes to all of them, for their part of the history of Brisbane
By Ashley Harrell – Some History of Table Tennis
Initially called “wiff-waff,” table tennis first became popular as an after dinner game for the upper class in Victorian England, played with cigar box tops for paddles, rounded wine bottle corks as balls and books as a makeshift net.
Trademarked in 1901 as “Ping-Pong,” the game soon spread internationally. The first world championship was held in 1926 and the game migrated to the United States. Although some considered ping pong a competitive sport, it was more popular as a simple pastime played among friends.
The game’s usefulness as a social lubricant was underscored in 1971 when an American table tennis player in Japan for the World Championships, accidently wound up on a bus of Chinese players. The players exchanged gifts and soon the U.S. team accepted an invitation to the People’s Republic, leading to a thaw in the relationship between the two countries and, paving the way for Richard Nixon to become the first U.S. president to visit China.
Historians and journalists called it ping pong diplomacy.
By Bob Hayes – an Oral History of the Brisbane Table Tennis club
Table Tennis History 1940s
The Brisbane Table Tennis club started way back in the 1940s where the players met in Milton.
Table Tennis History 1950s
Then in the early 1950s the club moved to the RNA.
Australian teams have been competing regularly at the World Championships since 1954.
Table Tennis History 1960s
Later, in the early 1960s, table tennis Brisbane moved to the Railways Institute which is located above Central Station.
From there the club moved to a building in Margaret Street in the city for a couple of years.
Table Tennis History 1970s
The Brisbane Table Tennis club then moved onto Hudson Rd, Albion in the 1970s.
Unfortunately many of the records of the old days were lost in the 1974 Brisbane floods.
Table Tennis History 1980s
The Brisbane Table Tennis Centre in Windsor was completed in 1981.
Thank you to Bob Hayes for this oral history.
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