Ping Pong Pete named Coach of the Year for inclusive Leeds work
Ping Pong Pete won Coach of the Year in London for turning Leeds table tennis into a retention machine, reaching schoolchildren, ex-prisoners and girls who might never have stayed in sport.
Peter Thompson did not win Coach of the Year for producing the loudest medal haul. He won it for building a table tennis lane wide enough for people who usually get filtered out of sport before they ever find their footing.
Thompson, better known in Leeds as Ping Pong Pete, collected the Cloudathlete Pride of Table Tennis Award during the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals London 2026 at OVO Arena Wembley. The honor landed with extra force because his mother, Kathleen Best, had played in an all-English women’s doubles final at the same venue in 1954. Few awards link the game’s present and past so neatly: one family, one arena, two very different versions of English table tennis.
What makes Thompson’s recognition matter is the way he has used coaching as an entry point, not a finish line. His PingPong4U programme runs through Shakespeare Primary School and across Harehills, including the CATCH Community Hub, and the nomination highlighted the breadth of players he has brought in. That includes ethnic minority girls, a men’s mental health group, people with learning disabilities, ex-prisoners and schoolchildren, a spread that tells you everything about the job he is actually doing. He is not just teaching forehands and backhands. He is making sure people stick around long enough for table tennis to become part of their week.
That is the real story behind the trophy. Grassroots coaching usually gets flattened into generic talk about access, but Thompson’s work shows the practical side of retention: sessions have to feel welcoming, useful and, above all, fun enough that people want to come back. For some players that means competition. For others it means fitness, structure or simply a place where they feel comfortable picking up a bat.
Thompson said the work is joyful, and that the point is helping people enjoy the sport whether they are there to compete, get fit or just have a good time. That approach is why the award resonated beyond Leeds. If table tennis wants a stronger pipeline, it needs more coaches who can do what Thompson has done in Harehills: turn first contact into second visits, and second visits into a habit.
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