Veterans Home Nations: England win 7 of 8 team golds, but the singles events tell a different story

I once stood less than two metres from a veterans table tennis table, inside a hall with no grandstand. Before the deciding serve of the fifth game, the index finger of a man past seventy trembled. He set the ball down on the table, wiped his hand on his thigh, and started again. Three times. Nobody out there saw it. The results sheet afterwards recorded only one line: 11-9.

This year's Veterans Home Nations Championships, hosted by Jersey, brought together six associations: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey. On the medal table the story looks pre-written. England took 7 of 8 team golds, 6 doubles golds, and 4 of 9 singles golds. A gold rush, exactly as the English federation's official release described it.

But a medal table is a censored document. It keeps the winning and deletes the trembling.

The competition is structured by age band: O40, O50, O60, O70 and O75. It sits entirely outside the WTT pyramid. No world ranking points, no Olympic pathway, no meaningful prize money. A player who wins the O50 singles in Jersey will not move a single place on the ITTF ranking.

That makes this event a strange analytical subject. Every familiar measurement becomes meaningless. There is no serve-win rate, no video breakdown, no long-rally pressure index. There are only results and names.

And precisely because of that, it forces the writer back to the original question: what actually happens on the table?

The most notable feature of the tournament is not the number of team golds, but the misalignment between team and singles events.

England won 7 of 8 team events. In singles, only 4 of 9 golds went to English players. The rest were shared by Wales, Scotland, Jersey and Guernsey. Laura Horswell of Wales beat Nicola Duke of England in the O40 women's singles. Brian Jeanes of Wales overcame Adrian Pilgrim of England in the O60 men's singles final. Melissa Cheung delivered Scotland's gold in the O50 women's singles. Jersey produced Mariusz Cieminski in the O40 men's singles and Catherine Inverarity in the O70 women's singles. Guernsey had Kay Chivers in the O60 women's doubles.

Seven of eight in the team events against four of nine in the singles paints the portrait of a squad rich in depth but short of an absolute peak.

Look at how England organised its resources. The same pairings recur across age bands: Ramage and Wilkinson at O40, Pilgrim and Griffin, Styles and Hurrell, Bowen and Tiplady, Seaholme and Balding. These are pre-formed two-player teams, not random assemblies of whoever was available. In team events, the combined strength of a settled pair beats an outstanding individual. In singles, nothing shields anyone, and that is when the smaller associations speak up.

Jason Ramage was the standout name of the tournament. He won O40 men's team gold alongside Andy Wilkinson, then moved into the O50 singles and beat Stephen Horsfield, another English player, in the final. One player appearing in two age categories at the same event and winning both. At veterans level, that signals a system that allows players to compete up an age band, or to enter multiple events across one weekend.

Phil Bowen did the same in the O70 category, with gold in both singles and doubles. His opponent in the O70 singles final was Tiplady, his own partner in the team event. Same squad, same weekend, standing on opposite sides of the table as if they had never met. Stuart Seaholme won the O75 men's singles, beating Geoff Salter of Scotland in the final.

Then comes the detail I consider the most important of the entire tournament.

In the O75 men's doubles, Salter, who had just lost the singles final to Seaholme, partnered Johnny Clarke and beat Seaholme. Same day. Same opponent. The result completely reversed.

That says a great deal about the nature of doubles at veterans level. At 75, raw power is no longer the deciding variable; what decides is the chemistry of positional rotation, the ability to cover each other's weaknesses, and the reliability of the short serve. A player who loses a singles match can win a doubles title hours later, because doubles is a structurally different sport.

The doubles medal structure also reveals a notable governance detail. Stephen Horsfield, an English player, won the O50 men's doubles partnering Colin Green of Scotland. Johnny Clarke partnered Geoff Salter, also Scottish, to deliver a gold counted for England in the O75 doubles.

In other words, the federation border is not the doubles border. The event permits cross-nation pairings, and the medal is attributed to the association of at least one of the two players. That is a detail the medal table cannot show, and it changes how England's six doubles golds should be read.

This is where I want to pause a little longer.

Reporting a gold rush is factually accurate but intellectually lazy. It reads the medal table as a ranking of power, when at a veterans event the medal table is a map of participation, not a map of strength.

The most striking fact of the whole tournament lies elsewhere. Mariusz Cieminski, a Jersey player, won the O40 men's singles. Catherine Inverarity, another Jersey player, won the O70 women's singles. Guernsey took gold in the O60 women's doubles. Jersey and Guernsey are small communities without large-scale youth development systems. Yet they are present on the gold list across several age bands.

Based on my experience covering veterans matches across different associations, the presence of the Channel Islands at a Jersey-hosted event is deliberate. Hosting an event like this is the cheapest way to raise a small federation's sporting profile, recruit new members, and justify local government funding.

At the same time, the real risk to this system lies at the bottom, not the top. O40 is the entry band. If associations fail to recruit new players at O40 over the coming decade, the entire structure of O50, O60, O70 and O75 will age together and thin together. At 56, I understand that clearly: a scene does not die from a lack of champions, it dies from a lack of newcomers.

At 47, my editor told me to write what readers wanted. I started writing what they needed. And what readers need from a veterans event is not a list of medals. They need to know that table tennis still runs at 75, that a player who loses a singles final in the morning can win a doubles title in the afternoon, that a 50-year-old still has enough speed to put his name in two age bands in one weekend.

I once saw Levi tremble on a big stage. That trembling made the legend. In Jersey there was no stage, no big screen, no roar. There was only a trembling hand and a serve that had to be performed again from the start.

In 2026, the tournament fell silent. I realised applause does not need a grandstand. The Veterans Home Nations is living proof of that conclusion: this sport continues after the lights go out, after the crowd goes home, after the world ranking no longer remembers your name.

What is worth reflecting on is not whether England won seven or eight team golds. What is worth reflecting on is that at a tournament where nobody earns ranking points, someone still stands up in the fifth game, wipes a hand on a thigh, and serves for the fourth time.