The History of Brisbane Table Tenns

The Brisbane Table Tennis Association has been a part of Queensland sporting landscape for a long time. It is said that the Queensland Association was formed in 1923 and the Brisbane Table Tennis Club has always been a big player in the scene.

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.

Table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988.

Table Tennis Today

Table tennis has been in the Commonwealth Games since 2002, with singles and doubles events for both men and women.

Wheelchair play has been also an optional event for elite athletes with a disability (EAD) since the inclusion of Para-Sports in 2002.
 

Table Tennis Stadium in Windsor: A New Era of Table Tennis in Brisbane

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

The Table Tennis Centre itself is a large building.

In the Table Tennis Centre's hey-day is was very busy.

Check out this photo from the early days.

Notice that the phone number only has 6 digits!

Today the building plays host to many local, national and international table tennis tournaments that sees the hall fills once again.