Fortunately spin doesn’t feature in the Level 1 certificate in Rugby Table Tennis Club’s skills award scheme – or I would never have passed! But don’t get too carried away with my sporting prowess, it’s really intended for junior schools!

Coach Don Pritchard put me through my paces in one of the club’s Sunday morning sessions at Rugby’s Table Tennis Centre of Excellence at Lawrence Sheriff School’s Griffin Centre.

It’s one of those sports which doesn’t have a great image. Unlike squash and tennis it’s more youth club than posh health club, which is a shame, because it’s such a fascinating game. The beauty of table tennis is that unlike most sports, it requires no physical strength. Little people can play big, young can play old and it’s all down to speed and skill.

Table tennis could do with a major profile boost, someone to do for table tennis what Sir Steve Redgrave has done for rowing, but in the meantime, I’ll do my best.

Table tennis was originally a parlour game played after the port, with cork faced bats.

These days the materials are rather more hi-tech and you can get ready-made bats for just a few pounds. More serious players will buy separate blades and rubbers to mix and match the best combinations for control, speed and spin – which could work out at a couple of hundred pounds or more. There are even glues with different qualities to put them together.

The rubbers vary in thickness and squashiness and also have little raised pimples, which can be ‘in’ or ‘out’, depending on whether you want a smooth or rough surface.

The table tennis balls can be orange or white – and the standard ones are stamped with three stars, costing anything up to a pound. Top players like using ones with dark print so they can watch the spin, but I don’t think I’m quite at that stage yet!

A few years ago the powers that be increased the size of the ball from 38mm to 40mm to slow the game down a little and make it better for spectators. But technology of the bats has more than made up for it and the game’s just as quick as it ever.

The club has a very handy robot, which fires balls with varying spin, for players to return. It saves all that chasing around to retrieve missed balls and trying to catch them in your left hand, because you’ve always got the bat in the other.

I’m not the most co-ordinated person at the best of times and the balls are so smooth and bobble about so much, I really had to concentrate or they would make an embarrassing escape!

Don took me through the nine objectives you need to master as an introduction to table tennis. First of all he showed me how to hold the bat in handshake grip, with the neck of the bat in the groove between your forefinger and thumb. Your forefinger then supports the bat, with the other three wrapped around the handle.  There’s also a penhold grip, for which you need very flexible wrists as you only play with one side of the bat.

Just to test my co-ordination, I had to walk around the table with the ball balanced on the flat bat.

Then the opening tests went on to see if I could demonstrate the forehand and backhand tap bounce, keeping the ball up in the air for five hits. This helps give players the feel of the bat and ball.

Test three helps improve stance and alertness as you have to demonstrate a good ‘ready’ position, slightly crouched with your feet wider than your shoulders, on your toes. I tried to look ready!

The ball was back for the next test. You drop it onto the table from your left hand, let it bounce once and then guide it into the opposite diagonal of the table, ten times each on the backhand and forehand. It’s very simple, but I did have to concentrate and keep my eye on the ball.

Before I knew it, we were onto test six. It’s the one the children like. Funnily enough I didn’t much! You have to play an imaginary rally, watching the direction of your opponent’s bat to judge your return. I didn’t miss a thing!

Fun over, it was time to learn to serve. Basically you have to throw the ball up with your left hand and hit it so it bounces first on your side of the table and then on the other – on the diagonal, either forehand or backhand.

Don explained the best serves bounce close to you, then as many times as possible on the other side. That way you are practising getting it just over the net, which makes it more difficult for your opponent to attack in reply.

He showed me how you throw the ball up from a flat hand, always keeping it visible. Before the rules changed players were able to hide it behind their back or spin it in their fingers to gain advantage. Now it’s meant to be fairer.

I managed to produce the required three serves, bouncing in the right places. As Don so kindly put it, they wouldn’t win the world championships, but they were legal!

The last two tests were to play a short rally, forehand and backhand. Again this should be quite easy, especially as we were practically playing in slow motion compared with everybody else, but I could have done with a bigger table and lower net at times.

Don showed me how you play push shots, really guiding the ball back over the net, nothing fancy.

Table tennis really is a test of hand-eye co-ordination. And although this was fine, I do wonder whether my eyes, or do I mean brain, would work quickly enough in a proper game! It must take a lot of practice.

So that was it, nine ticks in nine boxes – and ‘rookie’ level one was complete. Like my first feature on synchronised swimming, I don’t think I will be taking it up, but I had a great morning and enjoyed watching the others showing how it should be done.

The club holds it’s sessions on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, where anyone is welcome to go along and have a go and see if they like it.  

It enters teams into the Daventry and Leamington Leagues and U15s can play in the National, Midland and Heart of England Cadet leagues. There’s a National Junior League too for U18s.  Players also take part in tournaments, sports twinning and tours. A small group recently went to Jersey.

League matches are played in teams of three, with each end being the first to 11 points, or ten and two clear if it’s level. Each game is the best of five ends.

Club chairman Dick Frost, club secretary Jack Koumi and Don go into local junior schools, coaching about 120 children each week and also run play schemes during school holidays.