The True Story of the Funny Tales of Table Tennis 1 [The Birth of Table Tennis] — The Terrifying Den of Fanatics, “Table Tennis Collector”

The True Story of the Funny Tales of Table Tennis Published in the July 2020 issue of O-KOKU

Jota Ito (ITO Jota), the author of the table tennis history manga “Manga de Yomu Table Tennis Monogatari” (published by O-KOKU) and a table tennis columnist, introduces the amusing stories hidden in table tennis history and the background behind them. In this first installment, he explains the truth behind the birth of table tennis, as uncovered by table tennis history fanatics who have pursued the subject to the very end.

*This article reprints the content published in 2020. The information is from that time.

●References: Sports Studies Series “Tennis and Dress” edited by Masahiro Inagaki (Soubunsha), “Table Tennis Collector” ITTF

[The Birth of Table Tennis]

The Terrifying Den of Fanatics, “Table Tennis Collector”

I started writing the script for this table tennis history manga three years ago, in 2017. If I was going to write it anyway, I wanted to make it as accurate as possible, so I began browsing the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) website. For the years after Japan began competing in the World Championships, there are Japanese newspapers, magazines, and so on that still survive, so I could simply check those. But for anything earlier than that, there were many things I couldn’t quite understand. If it was written on the ITTF website, then it had to be the official history of table tennis, so it should be the most accurate.

I quickly found the “History” section and started writing, but something seemed off. Every time I looked at the website, the details changed little by little. If that’s the case, there’s no way to know what’s true, so I couldn’t move the manuscript forward.

While I was thinking how troublesome that was and poking around the website, I found a magazine called “Table Tennis Collector.” It has been published three times a year since 1993, and more than 80 issues are all available online. When I took a look, just as the title suggests, collectors were showing off their table tennis equipment and accessories, and exchanging information. It seems anything related to table tennis is fair game. On the cover of one issue was an old-looking card with a drawing of table tennis on it, along with a note saying, “It took 40 years to collect all 12.” Another issue says that a man in northern Utah, in the United States, whose hobby is searching underground for buried treasure with a metal detector, found a bronze medal for third place in the men’s team event at the 1929 World Championships, five inches (about 13 cm) below the surface. The team that won that medal was the England team, but why it had been buried in the ground in the U.S. is called a “mystery.” One player on that England team was Fred Perry, who later moved to the United States, but since his medal was acquired by a British collector in 1997, this was something else entirely, and the article concludes with a line asking readers, “If you have information that can solve this mystery, please let us know.”

This is incredible. These wildly unhinged table tennis fanatics were carrying out their eye-wateringly nerdy activities in a public place called the ITTF website. Wonderful.