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Put table tennis back on the agenda, urges ex-African champ

Emmanuel Kofi Asare, a former child protégé of the table tennis coaching legend D G Hathiramani, tells Asaase why he is so keen to revive the sport in Ghana

A year after launching a book that tells the story of how an Indian merchant introduced table tennis to Ghana, Emmanuel Kofi Asare, a junior African champion in the 1980s, has been discussing remedies to revive the profile of the game with Asaase Sports.

In March 2022 Asare, who lives and works in Germany, launched his bookD G Hathiramani’s Legacy: The Rise of Ghana Table Tennis – delving into how the ping-pong pioneer masterminded the formation of the Gold Coast Table Tennis Association in 1951.

The book also describes how Hathiramani then trained, groomed and mentored ping-pong greats including Ethel Jacks, a three times African champion, the Quaye brothers (Samuel and Emmanuel) and Asare himself.

Spread the word

“My main motivation was to put something down historically, because it has been one of our deficits in Ghana that we seldom put down events that happened several years ago and people tend to forget.

“So, I’m just happy that there’s something down [on paper] – some sort of institutional memory – for anyone really interested in knowing where table tennis is coming from,” Asare told Asaase Sports.

Although he is proud of the memory bank he has bequeathed to the table tennis fraternity and Ghana sports, the Hathiramani protégé worries about the decline of the sport nationally.

He believes enthusiasts must take the game to all parts of the country, organise competitions, get sponsors and provide proper equipment before table tennis can progress.

D G Hathiramani, Chinese table tennis coaches and Ghanaian fans/players, 1980s
Hathiramani with visiting Chinese coaches and Ghanaian fans/players (1980s)

“What we can do to revive the game is to take it to other regions in Ghana where we used to have it in the 1970s and 1980s – even in the 1990s. We had table tennis hubs not only in Accra, but also at Tema, and then in Ashanti Region, and also in the Western Region.

“We have to organise a lot of competitions. We have to get a lot of sponsors on to the table. And that has always been the problem with round sports … like table tennis, tennis or handball.

“All the money seems to go into football and it’s hindering the development of other sports. So, we are trying to get many more people on board.

“It’s not easy if it’s an everyday fight … but we have to take it up and we have to organise competitions, because the talent is over here.

“What I’m trying to do from Germany, where I’m located, is to get those on international bodies to get into it, to provide us with equipment. That is what we need.

“We don’t have the proper equipment to train – the bats, the rubbers. And even the places where the young people can train are a fiasco: if you go to the D G Hathiramani Sports Hall [at the Accra Sports Stadium], the floors are not in order.

“We have to get these things in place before we can progress,” Asare said.

Interview by Princeton Kwabena Wiredu

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