Table Tennis: The Game Sweeping Sydney’s North

The Hornsby RSL has upgraded the lower ground of its venue which houses its wildly popular sub-clubs, upgrading to 5 tables in the Snooker & Billiards room and 3 competition-grade tables in the Table Tennis room.

Table Tennis sub-club (HRSL TT Club), has been running since 1964 and is still one of the most popular aspects of the Club, with people often having to be turned away at the door for the weekly tournaments. 

Hornsby RSL Chief Executive Officer Mario Machado said spending such a sum of money on refurbishing the area was imperative to keeping the sub-club's as a top tier facility for the local community.

“We did it because it’s about a supplying a state-of-the-art community facility for members,” Mario said. 

Table tennis is popular in the Northern Metro region, with Hornsby RSL offering the most cost-effective option, charging $1.50 for a 30-minute slot on the table, as opposed to $5 at other facilities in the area. 

"It’s about keeping those members active, particularly the ones that get in early mornings which are all a part of the 70 years and over demographic,” Mario said. 

“It's very beneficial for them to still be able to actively play a sport.” 

President of the HRSL TT Club Geoff Barrett echoed this sentiment. 

"It's a sport that you can play at any age,” Geoff said.  

"People can play into their 80’s, so it's a game for life.” 

One of those long-term players is 83-year-old Wing Kwai Chan, who has been a part of the sub-club for almost 30 years, joining when he moved to the area from Hong Kong in 1994. 

Wing Kwai eventually became President, and now sits back as Vice President of the HRSL TT Club. 

Geoff says the slogan ‘live long, play table tennis’, emulates why he has been involved with the sub-club for over 10 years as well as seeing the amount of people who come to the Club to play each week. 

“We have a very popular internal handicap competition every Tuesday night. In fact, we have more people wanting to play it than what we can cope with,” Geoff explained. 

“On a Sunday afternoon, we call for nominations to play which usually fills up within a couple of hours.” 

With the playing positions filling so quickly, Geoff said that many locals just come down to the room and watch the rallies from the viewing platforms purpose-built around the room.

"We've always been a bit restricted on the number of teams you can have because we've only had the space to play on one table, but with the larger area, it allows us to expand the number of teams we'll be able to enter in the competition,” Geoff said. 

Mario hopes that the new facilities will boost the number of members in the sub-club as well as invite a new generation of players with the juniors’ program. 

“We've got a juniors’ program where we encourage younger members to sign up for a junior membership and we run a competition for junior members between the ages of 15 and 17,” Mario said.  

“The sub-club has an average of between 80 to 90 members and I imagine with the new facilities, that membership will increase.”