More than 150 promising young sports coaches made the journey to Loughborough University to attend the inaugural Youth Sport Trust’s National Young Coaches Academy.

The ETTA were represented by 16 young coaches from across England all of which were fantastic ambassadors for table tennis. The weekend was a brilliant opportunity for the coaches to work with other sports and share ideas and innovations with young coaches from different walks of life.

The weekend was very intense with workshops on coaching philosophy, organisation, adaptability, compassion, honesty and ethics. On the final day of the programme ETTA representative Stephen Gertsen delivered a table tennis specific workshop which included practical and theory based group tasks. The ETTA will now organise a follow up weekend specific to table tennis which will take place in Lilleshall at some point.

Gertsen said: “the table tennis coaches on the programme were a credit to the etta and the regions they are based, all coaches developed and improved over the weekend showing a lot more confidence by day 3. These coaches are on the right track and with the right mentoring and support have potential to develop into great coaches of the future.”

The ETTA would like to thank the Youth Sport Trust for an engaging and productive weekend at Loughborough University and look forward to being a part of future programmes such as this.

Coaches in attendance:

Tyla Anderson- London

Isaac Beevor- East

Paul Bergin- South East

Ben Brown- East

Zachery Bull- London

Patrick Cox- East Mids

George Haskell- South West

Matthew McCormack- North West

Adam Mckay- Yorkshire

David Pringuer- South East

Nathanael Sheehan- South West

Charles Sketchley- West Midlands

George Tester- South East

Natasha Walsh- East

Amy Wells- North West

Murray Wilson- London