Ballydehob Grade 2 Tournament
Friday 27th October saw the begining of the first west Cork Table Tennis Festival. The openning night saw many players enter their first ever tournament. Events were open to U10's, U12's, U14's and U17's. With Plate competitions in each. The event was well attended at junior level and nearly every one won a medal. The adult event was a "drawn" doubles with seeding where possible and proved very enjoyable. 60 entries were taken on the first night.

West Cork Ranking
The Festival continued early the next morning with the first of the annaul West Cork Rankings. This series of events has proved very popular and a number of new entries were taken from around the region. Kinneigh, Bantry, Ballydehob, Goleen, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Rossmore, Durrus and others. Events are run at U10, U12, U14, U17 and seniors, with seperate gender competitions. With 77 entries this was the largest ranking so far and it continues to grow. Luckily the new Ballydehob club were able to accomodate 8 tables thanks to the Cork Table Tennis Assoc. The Ranking results can be found at West Cork Rankings

Munster Senior Ranking
The third day saw the arrival of the big boys and girls for the Munster Senior Ranking! The entry was only 26 but this is higher than it was for the last Munster Senior event. The standard was high with both Brian Fitzgerald and Linda Mountjoy currently both number 1 in Ireland both entered for the singles, ladies doubles and mixed doubles. A family doubles was also organised where only immediate family can play together. The Hurleys beat the Woods in an exciting and stressful final!
Louise Long caused a shock when she beat Linda Mountjoy in the opening group phase but recovered in the final.

Elite Coaching
With the weekend of competition over it was time to get at all those faults and mistakes. The first days coaching started at 10.00am to 5.00pm with an hour for lunch. With 8 tables a limit of 16 was agreed for each day, some choosing to go for all three days. A lot of work was got through as well as some impromptu fun games with the local Ballydehob Club members coming in for for a session of table Gaurdian. Personnally I was exhausted by Thursday and was glad of the day off. My youngest referring to me as "daddy who?"

Development Coaching
Friday night came around and over 18 juniors turned up for the first session at the NCDC Development Course. Ted Bollard joined us and took the students through the basic 4 shots. Having to repeat himself constantly as new faces turned up over the weekend. Time keeping is not held in great esteem in West Cork! Saturday started at 9.30am to enable a longer morning session to accomodate those wanting to take their 1 Star test. Unfortunately with the weather being so bad during the week and good on Saturday all the cancelled GAA matches were played and that let the numbers down, with only 14 on the second day. Sunday morning saw the first attempts at the 2 Star award by players who had already qualified at 1 Star last season. Sunday afternoon saw a few new faces again and the weekend was finished off with a massive game of "table gaurdian."

Summary
9 days out of 10, 3 competitions, 6 days coaching with all standards covered. Exhausting! The results of this Festival will be seen over the next few months as more and more players enter into the existing clubs. For the Ballydehob Club it has quickly brought them up to speed with some of the older clubs and has helped the Goleen club tremendously as it searches for a new venue. Local businesses have been very supportive and the local press has given us some excellent coverage. We have also received a number of new enquiries especially from National and Secondary Schools.