Munroe trudges through Greene’s smokescreen

Sep 04, 2013 Sports

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By Edison Jefford
Former Commissioner of Police, the late Henry Greene, had undoubtedly set an infallible but yet sketchy financial precedence as President of the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA), in so much so, that pundits had committed the incumbent, Godfrey Munroe to ineptitude; this is before giving the long-standing General Secretary a chance in office.
Munroe knew he was up against a smokescreen of success; one that was premised on a few great handouts, but one that lacked any real substance. In fact, when Greene died, all, but a few donors died with him, which authenticated the established financial façade. In simple terms, Munroe had to re-establish a base that had shifted under a shrewd disguise.
He is only about ten months into his term as the GTTA President, but with little or no resources, Munroe is already changing the perceptions of the previously skeptical table tennis fraternity that unfairly compared him to the enigma of the late Police Commissioner.
Munroe successfully hosted the Caribbean and Regional Table Tennis Federation (CRTTF) Cadet Championships in Guyana last month, and against all odds, sent full-fledged teams to the senior version in St. Lucia with immense success for the Women’s team.
Below is an interview with Munroe, following the CRTTF Senior Championships in St. Lucia at which Guyana had mixed fortunes with the Women’s team proving to be on par with the regional counterparts and the Men’s team travelling for developmental purposes.
EJ: How would you rate Guyana’s performance overall at the CRTTF Senior Championships?
GM: I think the Women’s performance was fantastic, awesome and great; I am truly heartened with their performance. (Guyana’s Women’s team won a silver medal, losing in the final against Trinidad and Tobago. On their way to the final, they had brushed aside, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados and table tennis powerhouse, Dominican Republic).
EJ: Can you talk about the male and female performances separately?
GM: The female performance was very heartening; when one considers the average age of our team with Chelsea Edghill being 15 years old, Trenace Lowe, 22 years, Natalie Cummings 24 years and Akecia Nedd 18 years old, it’s an indication of the growth, potential and scope of our team to reach higher levels. They narrowly missed out on winning it all when one evaluates the scores, you would see how close it was.
Their performance more than ever emphasized that this team has the ingredients, and is on par with the power houses of regional table tennis and needs to truly be embraced and given the kind of support that they need to reach the next level.
GM: On the Men’s team side, we did indicate that this team was a developmental one given that it did not represent our best players, but players who have potential; players who have been showing the inclination to succeed and players who have been playing in domestic tournaments and represent the next generation of players and require nurturing. So, the expectations have to be measured against the initially set objectives.
I am a bit disappointed, since I must say, honestly that we were expecting a bit more from them; I say this in the context of Guyana’s table tennis tradition of pass Men’s teams performances where the junior players would defeat players from the OECS countries; I didn’t expect them to beat Trinidad and Tobago and Dominican Republic, but to be above and on par with the likes of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
EJ: Amid the Women’s team success, did you recognise any limitation? (Apart from their silver medal team performance, Trenace Lowe and Chelsea Edghill won the Doubles gold medal which placed Guyana in most major title contests).
GM: I said I was heartened in view of the adversity this team had to overcome with limitations in exposure and funding as compared to our regional counterparts, which is always a bugbear to truly making the required inputs into the players; When the feat is measured against the best in the region, limited training time available to our players and the unavailability of a Coach to this engagement due to funding, I think they did well.
EJ: Based on the Women’s performance, how would you assess the local base of the sport?
GM: The domestic base of the sport is the heart of the sport truly. While we have been making some inroads into spreading the base, we are no way close to achieving maximum participation; there is loads of work required to get there. But it is something we will accomplish; the pool of talent is tremendous and the potential and growth for the sport is great. We have lots of work to do as outlined in my answers to your questions.
EJ: Are you satisfied with your 2013 performance thus far?

GM: While I am pleased, satisfied would never be the word I would use to describe the female team’s performance, since we did not achieve the ultimate. I say pleased and heartened in the context and because of the tremendous scope this team has for the future, within the region and on the world stage.
EJ: If no state dissatisfaction; if yes identify areas of satisfaction…
GM: We still have to get the next generation of male players up to par.
EJ: What about the Decentralisation Programme and its effects on Table Tennis development?
GM: The Decentralisation programme of the GTTA is very critical and central to developing table tennis in Guyana. The Model of Mass Participation where a large nucleus of players are being nurtured and incubated with good tournament and coaching structures would ultimately lead to a higher peak and more popularity of the sport. This would improve the publicity, profitability and marketability in this ITTF outlined model, which has been highly successful over the world.
For this programme, we will be placing special emphasis on Primary Schools Development as a basis to capture players at a much younger age as a means to staying competitive and surpassing or aligning it with the ITTF World Hopes Programmes.
We have been making inputs in Buxton where young Aneka Philips was recently selected to the 2013 Pre-Cadet Championships team, in Diamond where we will be establishing a training programme at the Community Centre; Albouystown is another community we are targeting for development and the decentralisation programmes; Berbice has been making its impact under the stewardship and guidance of Floyd Conway; Bartica has been active; Region Two has recently reformulated its Steering Committee and we will be engaging them.
EJ: Where does the GTTA go from here?
GM: The GTTA would be generally moving in the direction of growing the sport, making it accessible to more persons and developing those structures to improve its management; the National Schools and Communities Programme with an emphasis on Primary Schools. This will be taking full effect by October where we are following a model of training teachers in the schools to become supervisory level coaches, we would be having after school and weekend type training programmes in clusters of schools.
Improving our National Training System to ensure that knowledge transfer takes place between our young players and senior players; improving tournament structures with more regular tournaments; improving Coaching Structures; more female participation; improving our human resource capacity and improving the Revenue Generation Capacity.
With the Dr. Frank Anthony, Minister of Culture Youth and Sport and Director of Sport, Neil Kumar’s announcement at the recently held Caribbean Pre-Cadet Championships that budgetary allocations for the establishment of a Centre of Excellence and Home for Table Tennis is being recommended in the 2014 budget, I view this as a step in the right direction.

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