A different school won gold in each of the eight categories at the Jack Petchey Schools Table Tennis Team Finals, on a day made even more memorable by a visit from England No 1 Liam Pitchford.

Among them were Addey and Stanhope School, who retained the Under-13 Girls’ title they won last year, as did Fox Primary in the Under-11 Girls.

In the closest final, Morpeth turned the tables on Wallington Girls’ High to win the Under-16 Girls’ event on countback, reversing the outcome in the same category last year.

In all, more than 150 players representing 40 teams were in action at the University of East London’s SportsDock.

Pictures by Stephen Pover – a full selection can be seen on our Flickr page.

Liam Pitchford’s visit was part of the UK Sport #AspirationFund programme, where athletes who are being supported on the road to Tokyo 2020 aim to inspire the next generation of players.

Under-11 Girls

Fox Primary were the decisive winners of the round-robin event as they defeated both Whitings Hill Primary and Christchurch Primary 8-0.

So dominant were the squad of Hayat Osseiran-Pistecky, Daphne Beebe, Isabella Turner-Samuels and Esme Brady-Rogerson that they only dropped one set between them in the whole competition, which Shannon Alderman of Whitings Hill took off Beebe.

The play-off between Whitings Hill and Christchurch for the silver medal was a close match, which Whitings shaded 5-3. The tie was poised at 2-2 when Alderman put her team in front for the first time, and Millie Shukro extended the lead by winning in five sets against Anastasia Malyarenko. Mona Haji then made it 5-2 to secure the silver medal for Whitings, whose squad was completed by Harleigh Clarke.

Under-11 Boys

St Edward’s Catholic School won the gold medal thanks to a 5-1 defeat of Fox Primary in the final.

The squad of Teagan Kazhal, Saxon Kostidis, Alfie Dodridge and Phillip Snell opened up a 4-0 lead – Snell thanks to a 16-14 win in the fifth over Joel Pinto. Tristian Madayag delayed the celebrations with a 3-2 win over Kostidis, but Kazhal clinched victory for St Edward’s by beating Anthony Rodrigues-Gregory. Albert Hyseni and Oskar Puczek were also in the winning squad.

Fox Primary beat Whigift 5-2 in the semi-finals, while St Edward’s beat Holland House 6-2. In the third-place play-off, Holland House overcame Whitgift 7-1.

Under-13 Girls

Addey and Stanhope School were the gold medallists as they won all three of their matches, dropping only one individual match in the process.

That was in the 7-1 win against St George’s Catholic School, who went on to finish in the silver medal position by virtue of 6-2 victories over James Allen’s Girls’ School and Wallington Girls’ High School. James Allen’s defeated Wallington 7-1 to take bronze.

The winning Addey and Stanhope squad was Sharon Bimbi, Anaiya Ali, Mya Mary Michaels, Tatianna Hoang and Emmanuella Okekumalatak.

Under-13 Boys

Whitgift School edged out Fortismere School in a close final which could have gone either way at 3-3.

In the end, it was Kai Sun Yiu and David Aboagye who won it for Whitgift, taking the last two matches against Noah Hacking and Cody Purcell respectively. Earlier, under-12 national champion Ollie Maric-Murray won his two matches for Whitgift, whose squad was completed by Jacky Lee and Thomas Sullivan-Ferrion.

The semi-finals saw Whitgift defeat University College School 6-2, winning the last two matches on deuce in the fifth to complete victory in a tie which had been well poised at 2-2 before the winners pulled clear.

In the other semi, it was 6-1 for Fortismere School over Ealing Fields School. It was UCS who won bronze, overcoming Ealing Fields 5-3.

Under-16 Girls

The destination of the gold medals was decided on countback as Wallington Girls’ High School and Morpeth School drew their decisive tie 4-4.

Wallington – with a squad of Mimi Otuguor, Yuvathi Kumar, Amineh Abbas and Sanjna Madan – lost the opening match but hit back to lead 4-1, but Morpeth turned it around, winning the last three matches 3-0 to tie up the overall score.

When the sets were counted up, it was 14-12 in favour of the Morpeth squad, which comprised Melissa Qian, Amalie Rawding-Miah, Sumayyah Saadiqah and Jennifer Chiesurin.

Both schools had earlier defeated Avanti House School – Morpeth by a 6-2 margin and Wallington 5-3, the latter thanks to Abbas winning the final match.

Under-16 Boys

London Academy were too strong for Wallington County Grammar School in the final, opening up an unassailable 6-0 lead by the time the match was conceded.

A lot of the matches were close, with Daniel Oluwamayowa beating Ojasvii Borah 11-6 in the fifth in the first match, Robert Ionascu prevailing 14-12 in a decider with Chid Egbeama in match four and match six also going the distance before Octavian Aparaschieve overcame Borah 11-9. Sajad Ali was the other member of the victorious team.

London Academy had whitewashed Ernest Bevin College in the semi-finals, while Wallington County Grammar School beat University College School 5-1. In the third-place match, it was 5-3 to UCS over Ernest Bevin, who had led 2-0. UCS won the next four and ultimately clinched it in the deciding set of the final match, Oskar Gersfield defeating Akilesh Reetoo.

Under-19 Girls

City of Westminster College defeated St Paul’s Girls’ School in an exciting match to decide the gold medal.

Twice City of Westminster took the lead as Casey Nickle and Yasna Hawbash both won against Anastasia Sandigurskaia. On both occasions, Federica Bonato levelled the score for St Paul’s, making it 2-2 by defeating Nickle 3-1 (11-7, 10-12, 11-8, 11-8).

And so it came down to the doubles and the City of Westminster duo prevailed by a scoreline of 11-2, 11-6, 11-9.

Both teams won 5-0 against both The Petchey Academy and Wallington County Grammar School. Wallington edged out Petchey 3-2 to finish in third.

Under-19 Boys

Ernest Bevin College were in great form throughout the competition, winning all three matches to take the gold medal.

It was 8-0 against The Petchey Academy and Wallington County Grammar School, but runners-up Whitgift School managed to take a match off the champions as Mikaeel Toosy beat Adam Benmohamed 11-5 in a deciding fifth set.

Otherwise, Benmohamed, Zion Boumpoutou, Nahom Goitom and Howard Onweng were untroubled.

Whitgift came out on top 8-0 against Petchey and 6-2 against Wallington to secure silver, while Wallington were third by virtue of a 6-2 victory over Petchey.