Will Me On

Table tennis pro launches Watford academy at former school

4:50pm Wednesday 20th May 2009

By Michael Pickard (Watford Observer) »

A 2012 Olympic hopeful returned to his former Watford school this afternoon to launch the UK's first table tennis academy with Urban Progress TTPro.

Will Maybanks, 17, is set to sign with an Austrian table tennis team after leaving Watford Grammar School for Boys last summer to pursue his sporting ambitions.

And he put his ping pong ball skills to the test in front of a packed school hall this lunchtime after the Rickmansworth Road school was selected to help increase the sport's popularity.

The academy, based at the school sports hall, will open to pupils and the public in September Will, whose parents live in Bushey Grove Road, left Watford Boys last summer and has spent the last eight months training in Hungary. He is now set to join a team from Linz where he will play competitive matches, having competed in Belgium last year.

He started playing for Watford Jets seven-and-a-half years ago before teaming up with Urban Progress TT Pro, who will also run the academy.

Will said: “You've got to really focus (during training). It's just table tennis, table tennis, table tennis. You've got to be mad to play it but it's always what I've wanted to do and I'm happy doing it.

“Table tennis is like an addiction. It's such a rush and a lot of people, once they start playing, they play until they're 70.

“My goal is 2012. England haven't had a team in the Olympics for a good while but now it's on the way up and because it's in London, they automatically get a team. It would mean everything to be at the Olympics.”

Watford Boys' headteacher Martin Post, who took on his former pupil in several furious rounds of table tennis in front of a boisterous crowd, said: “It's opened my eyes to find table tennis players are earning €150,000 a year. It's pretty big in Europe. The aim is to make it big in this country.

“We're really pleased (to be chosen for the academy). There's quite a strong tradition here but it would be nice to make it into the next league and develop a local schools league.

“We're very proud of Will and glad he's found time to come back.”

Chris Ogle, from Urban Progress TT Pro, said the academy would be a “Centre of Excellence” for the sport.

He said: “We're very excited about this project. It's a fantastic opportunity with the Head being so positive about it.

“If we can get kids playing table tennis, there's a natural progression from seven and eight-year-olds right to international standards though the academy.

“England is not on the world stage as far as table tennis is concerned. There's an opportunity to raise the profile of the game and I hope we can put table tennis on the map.”

To follow Will's progress, visit www.willmeon.com.

Photography by Eddie Dillon of Promedia Ltd http://www.promedia.ltd.uk

William gets Silver at the Junior Masters!

Last Weekend (16th 17th May 2009) William was competing in the Junior Masters Tournament. After the last two previous outings where Will had struggled to find form he was looking for a good performance to end his days as a Junior! Training abroad brings its own set of mind games as people 'expect' to see improvements and quickly judge when things don't go so well. Integrating new techniques into your match play doesn't happen instantly though as we all know. Anyhow nothing to lose this time, the last Junior tournament, and just an outside chance of going to Poland with England if Will won everything convincingly. So what happened ??

Well here are the results :-

Daniel Basterfield 3-0 win
Sam Walker 3-0 Win
Lewis Gray 3-0 win
Kim Daybell 3-0 Win
Emran Hussain 3-0 Win
Richard Andrews 3-2 Win
Zak Zilesnick 3-2 Win
Danny Lowe 3-0 Win
Ping Ho 3-0 Win
Chris Doran 3-2 Lose
Matt Ware 3-0 Win
Reece Tan 3-1 Win

Well there it is, 11 wins and one loss. Most of the matches were 3-0 with only two being a final leg decider 3-2. Well it was good but not quite good enough to impress the England Selectors and Chris Doran and Matt Ware were chosen to go to Poland.

Urfi (Gergely Urban) was with William for the weekend and made comprehensive notes at the change of service situations recording the scores at crucial moments within the matches. These are vital clues now for William to study and picture how was the mindset at these trigger points. Understanding the mental attitude and working on the right appoach at the big points will increase Will's consistency and bring about victories when the pressure is on. With a year in the Austrian league and working hard on these psychological aspects with his Sports Psycologist Beryl Whiting, Will is determined to show the England selectors that he has both the talent and the desire to be the best we have !!

WillMeOn Fundraising - Pie Throwing Gallery

Let it be known that today 16th May 2009 was a day that Chris Ogle was humbled. How could that be so I hear you gasp, well let me tell you the story -:

Today I went along to the Chapel Road Park in Pinner to attend what is called the 'Pinner Revels', a now 5 year old tradition staged to raise funds for the renovation of West House in Pinner itself. The fund raising comprises of stalls offering typical 'English Fayte Faire' which are in turn also raising money for good causes.

Let me tell you in particular about one stall. Richard Merrett stood alone next to his stall a table full of Foam filled plates representing custard pies when I arrived. Richard was already covered in foam from previous visitors to the stand.

Richard was standing in a field, in indifferent weather, alone, having custard pies pushed into his face for 5 hours on saturday and the reason? to raise money for the WillMeOn campaign. Richard has only played Table Tennis at school and that was eons ago, he doesn't even know Will, had never met me before but decided to do this on seeing Will's story in the Watford Observer back in February.

Now I don't know about you, but my hat is off to Richard, 'Big Time'. Richard might only collect £20-£30 for the whole day, but he sees this as one way he can help William Maybanks get to the 2012 London Olympics.

This may not be the largest contribution in monetary terms that the WillMeOn campaign receives but as far as personal effort (and from someone we have never even heard of before) it is topping the bill in my books! I don't suppose getting pies pushed in the face suits everyone, but why not help the WillMeOn campaign along a little and make a donation here and now even if its just in respect and support of what Richard has done.

Richard belongs to a social group for 30-50 year olds in the Watford, Pinner, Uxbridge and Harrow areas called the Coffee Pot which arranges a wide range of social functions to improve social lives of people in the vicinity. In the last week alone, the group have been to a concert, attended a quiz night and been out for a walkabout in Rickmansworth.

I gave an extremely warm and heartfelt thanks for what he did today and he even suggested he would do it again in September when a similar event takes place. For those like me who would like to recognise Richard's efforts today and thank him personally or make contact, his email address is Mtakethat@aol.com

Check out these videos below for more of the fun :-

Will back in the UK!

Yes William arrived back in the UK on Thursday 14th May and will be here in the UK now until the 26th. Will is back primarily to play in two major events in successive weekends. The first this weekend 16/17th May is the Junior Masters tournament where the top Juniors play each other in a league style format. The England selectors have their eyes on this tournament with those doing well likely to be invited to travel to the Pro-Tour event in Poland at the end of the month.

The second weekend sees Will in action again playing in the British League 1st Division play offs for Urban Progress TTPro the winners securing a place in the English British League premier division.

I caught up with Will on Thursday evening and handed over his Nutrition bars sponsored by  Natural Balance Foods. These are high energy snacks which will be invaluable for Will during his intensive training and also over weekends like those coming up in the next few days.

Will is in good spirits his training has been going well and he is in a fighting mood after the disappointment of two previous outings in the UK where he admitted himself things didn't go the way he would've liked. But to a certain extent the pressure and expectation is off now, this is pretty much the last Junior event for Will and he knows he just has to go out there and put all the hours of training into practice!

We will catch up with how Will got on Sunday evening, so don't forget to check back soon, or why not subscribe to this Blog and get all the updates sent straight to you by email using the link in the far right column "Keep In Touch"

William Maybanks in table tennis action at WillMeOn.com launch!

This picture of Will Maybanks, along with these others, was taken a few minutes ago at the Harlequin Shopping Centre in Watford. If you're in the area, get down there and challenge William to a game of table tennis! If you're not, see how else you can get involved here.

The toptastic table tennis 'tainment continues 'til c 5pm.