Historical Notes (2) ... organisation & regulation

1921:  The Table Tennis Association (forerunner of the ETTA) was formed.
1921:  The Table Tennis Association of Wales (TTAW) was formed.

Similar developments must have been occurring in other countries. By 1926 nine countries were able to get together to form the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

Before these new associations came into being the game could only have been an un-regulated pastime. No-one would have had the authority, for example, to decide how high the net should be, or how big the balls should be or even, come to think about it, how big the tables should be.

The height of the net is actually one of the things that they did eventually change. Prior to 1938 it had apparently been 6.75 inches, but it was then reduced to 6 inches. This, however, must have been a rather controversial decision because ten years later the argument was still raging.

In TTR in January 1948, Richard Bergman (former World Champion) wrote ...
Surely the advocates for a higher net have forgotten what happened in days gone by. "Chiselling" became a menace to the game. Remember the incident in Prague in 1936, when one rally of dull, monotonous "pushing" lasted for two hours and five minutes! Many spectators walked out with a determination never to watch "ping-pong" again.

But it wasn't all dull-to-watch in the days of the higher nets. In TTR, in July 1947, another author wrote ...
We hear from Czechoslovakia that a match between Andeadis and Tereba was reminiscent of the days when table tennis really thrilled the onlooker, with the defender standing well back and the attacker going "all-out". In one long rally, Tereba smashed over a hundred and one forehand drives before winning the point.

Note: the above, of course, all happened long before sponge rubber bat coverings first appeared in 1952.

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