Table Tennis England Chairman Sandra Deaton has dedicated winning the Service to Sport Award at last night’s Nottingham Post Sports Awards to table tennis volunteers all over the country.

Sandra admitted she was “blown away” by winning the award at last night’s ceremony at Southwell Racecourse. She was nominated by former sports development colleague Bill Blackamore and dashed back from the ETTU Coaching Conference in London to attend the presentation night.

Sandra said: “I was honoured and blown away to win – and incredibly surprised because the others on the shortlist were more local to Nottingham, whereas a lot of my work has been national.

“I’m delighted for myself but mostly I’m delighted for the sport, because awards like this come as the result of what everybody does around the country to promote table tennis, so this is really on behalf of all of them.

“It was illustrated by the recognition by people at the dinner of what we are doing. I was on a table with the Nottingham Vipers ice hockey team and they all knew there were tables around Nottingham where people could play the sport.”