February saw the start of the Leinster Clubs League. The goal is to give League Players who have not had an opportunity to play Leinster League this season a chance to compete and to expand the participation in league competition in the region.
With the backing of the Leinster League Committee and TTI, it was decided to take the opportunity to make some changes to the traditional format as well as to develop a league App.
The main focus of the format changes was complete matches at a reasonable time so that more people would be interested in participating, so far this has worked very well with most matches finishing between 10:00 pm and 10:30 pm.
The goal of the app was to increase player engagement and reduce volunteer workload. So far the league has been a great success (23 Senior teams and 6 Junior teams) and the app has proved very popular. The app shows all the teams including their players and their fixtures. Scores are entered directly in the app as individual matches are finished, and people can use it to track the match in real time. It also shows the updated league tables and player wins / losses so people can stay updated on their progress. One of the best features is the news section where you can see results come in and where people can post pictures and videos of games.
The picture below shows Paul Norgrove (Balgriffin) playing against Tommy Caffrey (Balbriggan) recently with many spectators of all ages watching and enjoying the game. The Junior League commenced on Saturday the 25th March with 6 teams competing over 3 weekends.
Chris Cowan – who organised the League said “ I would like to thank the Leinster League Committee for backing the initiative and in particular Tony Martin for his advice and encouragement, the board and management of the TTI for funding the app and for supporting payment administration, but most of all I would like to thank the roughly 110 players who have registered to play on 29 teams across 5 divisions for their support and patience . Hopefully the learnings from this league will support the continued development of the Leinster League in future seasons.”
This investment by the ITTA is part of our strategy to increase player engagement across the entire table tennis community and to reduce the administration burden on our dedicated volunteers. We will continue to look for opportunities to develop our digital offerings towards these strategic goals.
The App which has been developed by Keith Knox, is available to everyone and can be found on the app store or the play google store by searching “Table Tennis leagues” with the following logo
