Browsing: connection

November 11, 2025 | Alan Lane

Last week, Table Tennis England delivered an Activator course at ExtraCareâ€s Lovatt Fields Village, as part of a growing collaboration to bring table tennis to care villages across the region.

The session brought together staff and residents from both Lovatt Fields and Shenley Wood Villages, who took part in an engaging and practical workshop designed to help them use table tennis as a fun, accessible, and social activity for their communities.

This initiative forms part of a wider partnership between Table Tennis England and ExtraCare, which will see regular sessions and coaching support delivered by an experienced local coach. The aim is to provide residents with opportunities to stay active, improve mobility, and reduce social isolation through the joy of table tennis.

“It was wonderful to see how enthusiastic both staff and residents were, Table tennis is a simple yet powerful way to bring people together, spark movement, and create moments of joy.â€

Alan Lane – Area Manager South East

Many of the staff who took part specialise in supporting residents living with dementia and Parkinsonâ€s, and they welcomed the chance to add another tool to their work in enhancing residents†physical and emotional wellbeing.

With continued support from Table Tennis England, Lovatt Fields and Shenley Wood Villages are now set to lead the way in showing how table tennis can make a real difference to life in care communities.

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October 21, 2025 | Alan Lane

The Ping Aspire Series brought its unique blend of energy, inclusivity and friendly competition to Hastings yesterday, as players from across the region came together for another fantastic day of table tennis.

All ages and abilities were on show

Hosted by Tackleway Table Tennis Club in partnership with Table Tennis England, the event showcased everything Ping Aspire stands for – creating opportunities for players of all ages and abilities to come together, have fun and enjoy competitive table tennis in a relaxed and welcoming environment.

From social players to experienced league competitors, everyone had the chance to challenge themselves, meet new people and share in the positive Aspire atmosphere.

The event featured three competitive sections, with plenty of close matches and great sportsmanship throughout. Congratulations to our winners, who each received a £25 voucher courtesy of event sponsors Bribar – with thanks for their generous support.
Section 1 Winner: John Quintos
Section 2 Winner: Noah Standen
Section 3 Winner: Paul Allchor
Two additional awards were presented on the day to recognise players who best embodied the Aspire spirit through their positive attitude, sportsmanship and enthusiasm. Jake Mason and Lee Richardson were both awarded Aspire shirts for displaying fantastic qualities that truly represent what the series is all about.

Winners from Ping Aspire – Hastings

Events like this are perfect for people like Jake who has thoroughly enjoyed it. You never know you will like it unless you try it!

Charles Mason – father of Jake, winner of an attitude prize

A huge thank you goes to Kevin Long from Sussex County and James Gorridge from Tackleway Table Tennis Club for hosting the event and for their continued support of the Ping Aspire programme.

All smiles!

We would like to run a couple of these event a year to give our social players an avenue into informal competition – its ideal!

James Gorridge – Tacklewayy TT

The Aspire Series continues to demonstrate that table tennis is a sport for everyone – fun, inclusive and full of community spirit.

“If you have ever played and want to come back, enter – and if you have never played and want to try, still do it!.â€

Lee Richardson

The next stop in the series will be Thanet on Sunday 2nd November, offering another chance for players to experience the same friendly competition and social connection that have made Aspire such a success.
Find out more and register here:

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One of Nikola Jokić’s brothers was sentenced to a year of probation in connection with a viral fight at a Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers game in April 2024, according to the Denver District Attorney’s Office, The Denver Post reported Friday.

Strahinja Jokić, 43, pleaded guilty to trespassing and disorderly conduct after punching a Lakers fan in the face courtside at the Nuggets’ Ball Arena. The trespassing charge is a misdemeanor, whereas the disorderly conduct charge is a petty offense.

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Strahinja Jokić was initially charged with third-degree assault after video of the punch made the rounds on social media. The Lakers fan, identified as Nicholas Meyer, claimed in a lawsuit that he suffered a concussion as well as cuts and bruises on his face, plus a deviated septum, per The Denver Post.

“The assault shattered my sense of safety and control,” Meyer said in court Friday, via 9News.

“I became fearful of leaving my home, especially with my family. I worry constantly about retaliation, not just from the Jokić family, but from fans who might recognize me and act out violently.”

Strahinja Jokić was charged in July 2024. At the time, he told investigators that he felt he wasn’t in the wrong because he was defending an elderly man, whom Strahinja Jokić said he’s known for a long time, per CBS News.

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In 2019, Strahinja Jokić was charged with assault and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing phone service and a felony count of trespassing as part of a deferred sentence, per The Denver Post, which reported that he was accused of choking and pushing a woman and then precluding her from calling 911.

Strahinja Jokić’s trespassing charge was dismissed in 2022 after he successfully followed court rules for unsupervised probation and didn’t commit another crime during the two-year term, according to The Denver Post, which cited court records. The plea agreement in that 2019 case also dropped false imprisonment and assault against Strahinja Jokić, The Denver Post reported.

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WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray has offered a critical assessment of World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins’s connection with the WWE Universe, stating that he believes Rollins is currently lacking the emotional bond with fans that is necessary to reach the absolute highest levels of superstardom.

Bully compared Rollins to top stars like Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, and CM Punk, arguing that while Rollins is undoubtedly talented, he struggles to draw the same genuine, passionate reactions from the audience. Speaking on a recent episode of Busted Open Radio,Bully Ray broke down what he feels Rollins is missing from his character.

“I always go back to what it truly has to do with, and this is old school 101, emotional connection to an audience. People genuinely love Cody. Children love Cody, thus, the parents love Cody. Roman has a god-like aura to him. You feel like you are amongst royalty when Roman comes out. Plus, he has that Samoan heritage and bloodline, which we respect so much in wrestling, but respect even more in the WWE. Punk, the consummate rebel, the guy who has always been the voice of the voiceless and the peopleâ€s guy. All three of those guys have a unique emotional connection. Emotion, thatâ€s all this f—ing business is about. The emotional manipulation of the fan base and how you can get them to love you or hate you anymore. Thatâ€s it. Seth doesnâ€t have that level of emotion yet, and heâ€s been around for a long time.â€

He then critiqued Rollins’s elaborate attire and presentation, suggesting it makes him appear as if he is trying too hard to connect with the audience.

“Youâ€re not as quick to say ‘is pro wrestler†as you were the other three. That is the microscopic nuance of the emotional connection to Seth, where when you see the get-ups every week, itâ€s almost like heâ€s trying so hard. Forget about how I feel about the suit, Cody wears a suit on the beach. Roman looks like he could be walking into a gym or the grocery store, and Punk looks like your regular everyday guy. They could be wearing those clothes anywhere. Seth is putting on this garb to go stand in the middle of the ring. Heâ€s putting Seth Rollins on on Monday night and taking it off on Tuesday morning.â€

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Making history is such an overused phrase in sport. There’s a danger we start to believe it’s easy, expected, nothing special. Or that it just happens by magic in an instant on a golf green or a rugby pitch. We envisage “Henry V speeches†on the eve of battle urging players to make their mark on history moments before stepping into the arena. But at the weekend, two of the finest sports teams in the world demonstrated how months and years of intentional, deep culture-building are necessary to create a team identity to underpin the highest levels of performance.

Although at starkly different ends of the commercial sports world, both the European Ryder Cup team and the England women’s rugby team deliberately cultivated a shared sense of what it meant for each team to create history together. Europe knew they had to defy the odds to win away for the first time since 2012, while the Red Roses hadn’t won the World Cup since 2014, losing in the previous two finals.

So what did these teams draw on to ensure they could bring their best game in those make or break moments? Performing under pressure at that level is not about training harder or putting the game‑face on. It’s not enough to be fuelled purely by individual, extrinsic drivers “to be the bestâ€. That’s always there within an athlete’s psyche, but when you need to dig really deep – whether it’s facing a hostile environment at Bethpage Black, or Canada scoring first against you in the World Cup final at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium. You need deep-rooted foundations to ground you, to hold your nerve and find your best performance, and to develop the instincts that help a team to achieve more together than they could alone.

Rather than feel negatively pressured or weighed down by history as we have seen in the past, these athletes, captains, vice-captains and coaches respected, researched and embraced the history of their sports. They understood how the past, present and future would connect when they took to the field of play. And then they used this understanding to make sense of their unique responsibility to write the next chapter together, finding joy in the opportunity and privilege to do so.

Behind the scenes in the Europe locker room, “This is our time, this is our place†was emblazoned on the wall, accompanied by names, jerseys and stories of those who had made their mark, focusing on the European Ryder Cup teams that had beaten the odds to win in the US. The dates of the four previous wins were written on the walls: 1987, 1995, 2004 and 2012 with the four shirts of those winning away teams hanging up. This wasn’t just about words, it was about jerseys worn and sweated in by their predecessors. Their shared challenge was to add one more shirt to the rail.

A similarly profound history swirled around the Red Roses. The Trail of Roses installation at the London Eye celebrated every woman who had pulled on an England shirt, the pioneers and trailblazers on whose shoulders the current team knew they stood. This was a moment to show how far the women’s game had come since the first World Cup in 1991 and point to the immense future potential. Echoing the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team philosophy of taking care of the jersey before passing it on in better shape to the next player, these supremely talented golfers and rugby players drew on this sense of lineage to reach out and connect with their audiences. All the while, they gained perspective, meaning and humility for themselves, qualities that are key components of human resilience.

Former players (from left) Maxine Edwards, Janis Ross, Karen Almond, Emma Mitchell at the Trail of Roses, an installation featuring 267 giant red roses to represent every England women’s rugby player. Photograph: Stripe

Both teams set their ambitions far beyond winning. Luke Donald, the European captain, reaffirmed that they weren’t just playing to win, they were playing for each other, for all those who dreamed of playing for Europe in the future, for something far greater than themselves. Continuing to draw on the work with the performance coach Owen Eastwood that shaped his captaincy and team-building skills two years ago in Rome, Donald commissioned a moving video that featured many of the 37 European men who had won an away Ryder Cup, including current members of the team and himself – a powerful reinforcement of their overarching mission.

Donald knew he needed to invest in both the data and the culture, the quantitative and the qualitative. One vice-captain, Edoardo Molinari, crunched the stats to inform pairings while another, José María Olazábal, captain from the last Europe team to win on foreign soil, brought past inspiration. Donald spent time listening to the players, figuring out how to prepare and set them up to thrive and play their best game at Bethpage Black: creating a shared purpose, connecting them to each other and then giving them autonomy to lead themselves once on the course.

New Zealander John Mitchell, the Red Roses’ head coach, similarly prioritised culture-building since joining in 2023. The Red Roses emulated one of the core team strengths of England’s women footballers by ensuring the team spirit for those among the replacements felt as strong as those on the pitch. They also shared the Lionesses’ ambition to create a lasting positive impact after the tournament through inspiring younger girls watching, the upcoming generation of players, as well as global rugby leaders to see the future potential of the sport.

Both of these glorious sports teams have shown us that the true value of their sporting success lies in the depth of connection to their predecessors, those watching now and future generations to come. Developing a deep and deliberate historical consciousness is becoming a core part of how modern elite sports teams build resilient cultures to take their performance to the next level.

After starting 0-2 for the first time since 2014, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs finally got into the win column, securing a 22–9 road victory over Russell Wilson and the New York Giants on Saturday.

Mahomes and Tyquon Thornton turned around a lack-luster first half performance with the QB throwing for 224 yards and one touchdown on 22-of-37 passing. He connected with Thornton for his sole touchdown pass while Kareem Hunt ran one in to help Kansas City improve to 1-2 on the year.

Meanwhile, Wilson and the Giants dropped to 0-3, still winless on the season. Frustrated continue to call for rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart — the team’s 2025 first-round pick — to take over as New York’s offensive struggles continue.

Following a shaky first half for the Chiefs, the duo of Mahomes and Thornton came alive in the second, sparking the offense and energizing fans with the much-needed victory.

The Chiefs opened the scoring with a 54-yard field goal from Harrison Butker, then added another from 48 yards to take a 6-0 lead early in the second quarter.

On the Giants’ first possession of the quarter, Wilson was intercepted by Chris Roland-Wallace, but Kansas City missed the ensuing field goal. New York responded with a 13-yard touchdown run by Skattebo, though the blocked extra point kept it at 6.

Wilson threw another interception before the half, setting up Butker’s third field goal and a 9-6 Chiefs lead at the break.

Mahomes opened the second half with a short touchdown pass to Thornton — the Chiefs’ first touchdown of the game and the only score of the third quarter — giving Kansas City a 16-9 lead heading into the fourth.

New York answered with a field goal from Graham Gano to trim the deficit, but the Chiefs responded quickly. A deep pass to Thornton set up Hunt for a 1-yard rushing score. A missed extra point made it 22-9.

With just over three minutes remaining, the Giants reached first-and-goal, but Wilson stunned fans with an intentional grounding penalty followed by three off-target incompletions, sealing the win for Kansas City.

The Chiefs will return home next Sunday to face the Baltimore Ravens.

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“I go to football every week, all my life. Home, away, England away, all of it,” says Roman Kemp. “And…