Welcome to Rawreth Juniors Club Blog

Rawreth Juniors was established 11 years ago. Three local league players whose children and grandchildren had started to take an interest in the sport decided to set up a club for Juniors only as there were no such clubs in the area. From those early days, the club has gone from strength to strength, and it now arguably one of the biggest clubs in the county.

Our club was formed in 2000 by George Reeves, David Nunn and Ken Field.  Each of these gentlemen had played the sport within the local league, had children who were involved in the sport, and identified a need for a Junior club in the area. 

We are proud to say that our President is Steve Tilson (former Manager of Southend United Football Club) who happens to be a Premiership Division table tennis player too!

Andy Nunn (Our present Chairman) became involved in the running of RJTTC with brother David in 2001 and eventually took over the running of the club with Mel Jones in 2007. 2008 saw the arrival of Stuart Gibbs (Ex-England Junior and Senior and current England VET) as our Head Coach. This bought about a change to the club in terms of a more structured approach to learning the game. Stuart bought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the club and willingly shared it with our Juniors.

More recently, the club has undertaken further development of its coaching effort. We have appointed Gareth Herbert as our Head Coach.

Gareth has been England ranked No 1 in all the age categories he could have (Cadets, Juniors and Seniors). He has represented the UK in the Commonwealth Games and has won two gold medals. Gareth became the England Junior Team Coach, the England Youth Development Head Coach and was named Young Coach of the Year 2004

Not only does Gareth have a wealth of experience in terms of his playing ability, he has been trained by some of the best coaches in the sport so can bring a vast knowledge of coaching techniques to the club. He has a positive attitude to the game, is very motivational and will make learning the sport varied and fun! He also recognises that not everyone wants to play competitively and that some children are just keen to play for fun.

Over the years, we have been incredibly fortunate to have the assistance of many table tennis players from the local leagues to assist with the development of our Juniors, and as a result our Juniors have enjoyed local tournament success and commendable Essex and National rankings. We have two teams of Juniors entered into the local league, who compete regularly.

Our aim is to introduce youngsters between the ages of 7 and 18 years to the sport, develop their playing ability and enjoyment of the sport; build the skills of appropriate etiquette and gamesmanship, encourage them to progress to competitive play within the Southend and District Table Tennis League (SDTTL) and where possible offer them opportunities to advance to County and National ranking standard.

We now have approximately 38 members of our club who train regularly here, with us usually having between 20 and 30 on any one given evening, and our club continues to go from strength to strength.