Darting across the third floor of the Barbican, I reach out just in time to flick a ping-pong ball back to my opponent. It goes in by a whisker, hitting the chrome table with a “dink”.
These sorts of high adrenaline moments aren’t really the norm in an art gallery — usually a rather sedate sort of place where people can absorb a bit of culture without interruption from me, blurting out expletives (that ball that went “in” was a one off). But today, we’re playing ping-pong on a glinting silver table (bling- pong, if you will) designed by artist — just one of the ultra-trendy ping-pong tables attracting London’s in-the-know crowd to try a game of table tennis.
You’ll find them at the brand new King Pong night at The Book Club, on a Tuesday, pinging to win a £30 bar tab and a champion’s bat. On Wednesday, they will be at hitting a ball at the Dalston Superstore or playing a 12-person “round the table” game at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane with the Young Offenders’ Institute (no, not a real one, but a ping-pong club named as a nod to the popularity of the sport in prisons.) On Thursdays the YOI moves to The Black Heart in and on Friday to The FleaPit on Columbia Road. Finally, on Sunday, ping-pong descends on Working Men’s Club, making it almost a full week of east London table tennis.
“It’s definitely been getting a bit trendy,” says Damon Sripha, one of the founders of ping-pong that began at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and is now behind a Come Along ping-pong event at the Barbican this weekend in which visitors will be invited to play on tables specially designed by artists. “The ping-pong crowd are definitely not sporty people. They’re people who like to look good and play socially — probably a bit like the game’s roots in Victorian times,” he says.
They won’t want to play on the mirrored table I’m at, then. The “must-reach-ball” faces you see reflected in its surface don’t look good at all.
Although the origins of the game are disputed, it is thought that ping-pong may have been first invented as a dinner-table game called Wiff Waff in 19th- century England. Now, dominated by the Chinese, it is the world’s largest participation sport with 40 million competitive players. “At the game’s height in the Seventies,” says Richard Yule, chief executive of the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA), “just about every youth club played ping-pong and offices had tables for their employees.” In London, some still do. , co-CEO of , and , group chief exec of , are such keen players that each has a ping-pong table in his London offices.
But it was in in 2008, when actress opened up a swish ping-pong bar in the heart of , that it began turning trendy. “I started finding out that there was this subculture of ping-pong and all these people that you wouldn’t expect are serious about it,” said Sarandon on opening the bar. , she said, is “so committed that he trained in while he was shooting a film there.”
Of course, it’s not just the fashionable and glamorous fuelling the ping-pong rise. “It’s really big in schools now,” ETTA’s Yule points out. London sports college, the West London Academy, now boasts four pupils who are national champions. It was at another London school, Snowsfield Primary, that tried his hand at the game earlier this month.
“It’s a real recession sport,” says Yule, explaining why ping-pong is having its “new moment”. “There’s a low barrier to access as you don’t need much space to play it — which is why it works so well in bars and clubs,” he says. “Ping-pong is being rediscovered — and by a new crowd. It’s attracting a lot of artists and trendy people.”
Indeed, it was Ron Arad’s “particular fondness for ping-pong”, says curator Corinna Gardner, that inspired the Barbican to run a ping-pong event alongside his work. As well as allowing visitors a go on Arad’s table at the event this weekend, the gallery will also host a Wiff Waff tournament in May.
Of course, this will all delight , who announced with glee at the that: “The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner. We saw an opportunity to play Wiff Waff — and that is why London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world: Ping-pong is coming home’.” Well, Boris, it would seem on this occasion that you were right.
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Ping-pong mania in London
Darting across the third floor of the Barbican, I reach out just in time to flick a ping-pong ball back to my opponent. It goes in by a whisker, hitting the chrome table with a “dink”.
These sorts of high adrenaline moments aren’t really the norm in an art gallery — usually a rather sedate sort of place where people can absorb a bit of culture without interruption from me, blurting out expletives (that ball that went “in” was a one off). But today, we’re playing ping-pong on a glinting silver table (bling- pong, if you will) designed by artist — just one of the ultra-trendy ping-pong tables attracting London’s in-the-know crowd to try a game of table tennis.
You’ll find them at the brand new King Pong night at The Book Club, on a Tuesday, pinging to win a £30 bar tab and a champion’s bat. On Wednesday, they will be at hitting a ball at the Dalston Superstore or playing a 12-person “round the table” game at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane with the Young Offenders’ Institute (no, not a real one, but a ping-pong club named as a nod to the popularity of the sport in prisons.) On Thursdays the YOI moves to The Black Heart in and on Friday to The FleaPit on Columbia Road. Finally, on Sunday, ping-pong descends on Working Men’s Club, making it almost a full week of east London table tennis.
“It’s definitely been getting a bit trendy,” says Damon Sripha, one of the founders of ping-pong that began at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and is now behind a Come Along ping-pong event at the Barbican this weekend in which visitors will be invited to play on tables specially designed by artists. “The ping-pong crowd are definitely not sporty people. They’re people who like to look good and play socially — probably a bit like the game’s roots in Victorian times,” he says.
They won’t want to play on the mirrored table I’m at, then. The “must-reach-ball” faces you see reflected in its surface don’t look good at all.
Although the origins of the game are disputed, it is thought that ping-pong may have been first invented as a dinner-table game called Wiff Waff in 19th- century England. Now, dominated by the Chinese, it is the world’s largest participation sport with 40 million competitive players. “At the game’s height in the Seventies,” says Richard Yule, chief executive of the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA), “just about every youth club played ping-pong and offices had tables for their employees.” In London, some still do. , co-CEO of , and , group chief exec of , are such keen players that each has a ping-pong table in his London offices.
But it was in in 2008, when actress opened up a swish ping-pong bar in the heart of , that it began turning trendy. “I started finding out that there was this subculture of ping-pong and all these people that you wouldn’t expect are serious about it,” said Sarandon on opening the bar. , she said, is “so committed that he trained in while he was shooting a film there.”
Of course, it’s not just the fashionable and glamorous fuelling the ping-pong rise. “It’s really big in schools now,” ETTA’s Yule points out. London sports college, the West London Academy, now boasts four pupils who are national champions. It was at another London school, Snowsfield Primary, that tried his hand at the game earlier this month.
“It’s a real recession sport,” says Yule, explaining why ping-pong is having its “new moment”. “There’s a low barrier to access as you don’t need much space to play it — which is why it works so well in bars and clubs,” he says. “Ping-pong is being rediscovered — and by a new crowd. It’s attracting a lot of artists and trendy people.”
Indeed, it was Ron Arad’s “particular fondness for ping-pong”, says curator Corinna Gardner, that inspired the Barbican to run a ping-pong event alongside his work. As well as allowing visitors a go on Arad’s table at the event this weekend, the gallery will also host a Wiff Waff tournament in May.
Of course, this will all delight , who announced with glee at the that: “The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner. We saw an opportunity to play Wiff Waff — and that is why London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world: Ping-pong is coming home’.” Well, Boris, it would seem on this occasion that you were right.
