By Staff Reporter
Desiree Lancaster is easily one of the more successful female table tennis players to come out of Berbice.
At least the records say so. A total of nine national female singles titles, five on the trot, can only be matched or surpassed by the exploits of one Doreen Chow-Wah, a former Caribbean women’s singles champion.
Berbice has had its fair share of extraordinary female national players. There was Donna Sue and the talented Michelle Baird and Fanta Jones. Later on there were Vida Moore of Corriverton, Enid Kirton and Petal Bennett, all of whom were either national senior or junior players. Arna Matheson was another female player who showed immense potential. Back then, female players from Berbice were able to hold their own with players from the other counties.
However, administratively, table tennis in Berbice has suffered. There was a sub association in the 1970s headed by Ashton Sargeant and later Aubrey Daniels, organized a number of tournaments in his role as Sports Development Officer of the Region but those instances were few and far between.
Today, table tennis in Berbice is badly in need of facilities and a home.
“Nothing is really going on absolutely nothing,” Lancaster told this newspaper in an exclusive interview recently.
According to Lancaster prior to the shutdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, she had volunteered her services at the Berbice High School, a school which once boasted players such as Roger and Mark Alphonso, Evan Chee, Neil and Donna Sue, the late Ray Hazel, Souvenir Ramdehol, Patrick Naurayan, Basil Duff and Orin `Jabbar’ Hazel.
Lancaster, who said she wanted to give back to the sport, said that she had begun to work with first formers of the institution, training them on Mondays and Tuesdays from 10.30am to 12.30 and from 1.30pm to 2.30pm adding that table tennis was now a part of the school’s curriculum.
At the moment, Lancaster said that BHS was the only school which was receiving her services but said that she planned to incorporate other schools.
According to Lancaster, the two biggest issues affecting the development of the game are venues and tables.
In Berbice, particularly New Amsterdam, the issue of venues has been a constant bugbear.
The Prison Sports Club was one venue available in the past but, like the two Bermine Sports Clubs on Smythfield and Vryheid’s Street, the players were forced to play watched by the patrons, some of whom might have been a bit under the influence on some occasions. The former CMC Hall on Ferry Street, the New Amsterdam Multilateral School auditorium, the New Amsterdam Town Hall and churches such as the Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican and the Nazarene denominations, were the venues sought out by eager table tennis players, some of whom were called `pro’ not because of any professionalim on their part, but rather for vigour and gusto with which they sought out and frequented venues where the sport was being played. Further afield venues like the Port Mourant Training Centre, Blairmont and even as far as Skeldon, table tennis was sought out and often played with fervor.
Lancaster disclosed that late last year national coach Linden Johnson did some work with schoolteachers and a table, brought up for the occasion, was left at the Prison Officers Sports Club.
She said she had written the Prison Officers Sports Club authorities and received permission to utilize the venue but said at the moment the facility was undergoing repairs.
Lancaster said that herself and Richard Thompson, another former player, also wrote the headmistress of the Berbice High School, seeking permission to use the auditorium in the afternoons since it can accommodate four tables.
She also said that a number of former Berbice players, Ramdehol, Naurayan, Lanny Anthony along with Mark Ramjeet were willing to assist and that she plans to contact them about sending in used rubbers and such like since equipment is quite expensive. Ramjeet, Ramdehol, Anthony and Naurayan have in the past sponsored competitions.
Lancaster dominated female table tennis in Guyana in the 1980s winning nine national titles, matching the feat of former Caribbean men’s singles champion Sydney Christophe, who was similarly dominant at the time. In 1986, at the Caribbean championships in Ponce, Puerto Rico, she won a bronze medal in the women’s doubles with Michelle Baird the pair ousting the top Jamaican duo of Sandra Riettie and Sophia Virgo in the quarterfinals.
In 2011 Lancaster, who had returned to Guyana after migrating, won gold in the women’s singles for veterans, at the Caribbean championships held at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, under the GTTA then led by the late Commissioner of Police Henry Greene.
Lancaster badly wants to resuscitate the sport among the female players in the area and is longing for the coronavirus pandemic to end so that she can resume her coaching career which she hopes will ultimately lead to someone from Berbice surpassing her record of nine national women’s singles titles.
