Hello, welcome to the TTCOB-website! "TTCOB stands for "TTC Oude Bareel" or "Table Tennis Club Oude Bareel". Generally, it is abbreviated to "TTCOB".
This site is up since 1995 and turned
out to be the first Belgian table tennis club site on the internet. What's more: quite some people found their way to our club thanks to this website!
If you still have any questions about our club after reading these pages: don't hesitate to contact us by mail: info[at]ttcob.be.
TTCOB was created in 1984 by some local youngsters who didn't like to see some very decent tables just standing there without being used. Now, more than 25 years later, we have turned into a successful non competitive pingpong club based in the Ghent area (Belgium), in Sint-Amandsberg to be more precise. Our members mainly live in Sint-Amandsberg, Oostakker, Lochristi, Destelbergen and Ghent. Number of members in 2010: 75.
We play every Wednesday evening from 6.45 pm until ... eh ... let's say very late at night. Anyone is welcome: people who just want to start to play, experienced players. Although we are a non-competitive club, competition and ex-competition players are welcome too.
Where do we play? In the "Parochiaal Centrum" of the "Oude Bareel" in Sint-Amandsberg. That is in the Beelbroekstraat, right next to the Antwerpsesteenweg.
Click here for a map on maps.live.com.
"Non competitive" or "amateur" club means that we only play for fun and that the club is not part of any national or regional league.
These are the enthousiasts trying to run the club as good as they can and spending many hours working voluntarily at home or at the club itself. This is the situation as of February 2009.
Since the end of 1997, our youth members have their own delegation. These 4 people work closely together with their colleagues mentioned above.
Since our club started, we've been organizing a tournament for non-competition players during the first full weekend of February. Quite successful, considering the number of participants:
Some explanation. The top year was clearly 2001 with almost 200 players. The absolute maximum, we couldn't handle any more players. It was clear that such a success could not last for ever. As anyone could notice at tournaments played later on that year, the number of participants decreased everywhere.
So we knew we had to expect less players too for our 2002 edition. We guessed right: 136 players were present, which was still a lot more than any other tournament.
In 2003 we organised our own tournament for the 20th time, so we hoped to increase
the number of participants. And indeed, we succeeded: 141 players!!
Pictures and results of the 2003 edition can be found at this page (in Dutch).
The 2004 edition had about 140 players present. Click here for an overview of the results (in Dutch).
As we had noticed on other tournaments in 2004, the number of particpants was decreasing dramatically everywhere. As a result,we had to expect less players at our tournament in 2005. Unfortunately, we guessed right: eventually, about 100 players turned up that year. Less quantity ... but definetely not less quality.
Read the results here (in Dutch).
The next year, in 2006, things went better. Probably thanks to a some external publications, some new unknown players showed up, some of which weren't even playing in a club. In the end, there were 117 participants, which made us quite happy.
Quite remarkable that year: many games took five long sets. Our conclusion: there's a levelling between players.
You can read the results here (in Dutch).
Our 24th edition on 3 and 4 February 2007 had 102 participants.
Click here for a review (in Dutch).
A milestone in our club history: the 25th tournament on 2 + 3 February 2008
Read the review here (in Dutch)
26th tournament: 7 and 8 February 2009 - 108 players
Click here for the review! (in Dutch)
Click here for the review! (in Dutch)
Interested in tournaments? Follow this link and you will get a webpage where you can find a list of all amateur tournaments being organized in East and West-Flanders. Do not worry if you are not able to read that text: it is written in Dutch since I do not expect any American, Asian or African web-surfer to be interested in local, small scale, amateur table tennis tournaments.
Since a number of activities didn't really catch on any more, we had to look for some new ideas in 2006. After some brainstorming, we decided to organize a quiz on general subjects. Only club members and sympathizers could participate. This first quiz took place on September 16 and turned out to be a real success.
Read a review here (in Dutch).
One year later, the second quiz was organized. 24 teams were present, mroe than the first time.
Read our review here (in Dutch).
Since all good things come in threes, there was a third edtion in 2008. Technically even better equipped than the first two times. And again, people gave quite positive comments!
Click here to read the review (in Dutch).
We continued in 2009: full house for the 4th quiz on 19 September (25 teams present).
Click here to read the review (in Dutch).
A new activity was created in 2001: going for a bicycle trip on a sunny summer afternoon somewhere in August. The region north of Ghent counts a number of well known cycling routes. In 2001, we followed part of the "Kastelenroute" (Castles route), the next year 30 of us discovered the Ledebeekroute, meanwhile enjoying the good things of life, as you can see below ...
In 2004, weather was quite bad on the day we had chosen, but still we went for a ride. The next year, weather was even worse, and we had to cancel the event. In 2006 and 2007, no bike trip was organized.
But in 2008 we decided to give it a try again. About 20 people took a 40 km drive in sunny but windy weather.
Luc, who had organised the trip in 2008, volunteered for another edition in 2009. Thus, a group of 30 people went for a ride on 4 July, about 40 km long.
The weather conditions were simply gorgeous this time, we stopped twice for those who weren't trained bikers.
For a number of years, until 2005, we organized a tournament for members only, but this one was totally different from any "normal" tournament.
What was so special about it? Well, just about everything: the bats, the tables, the nets, the rules ...
On 21 August, the 2004 edition took place. As always, there were a number of special situations to deal with: the rules had been changed, you had to sit on your knees, bats were replaced with tennis rackets, another bat had a real big hole in it ... One of these "tortures" might even be described as "pingpong squash". Just like the previous edition, in 2002, Ben Gemeen and Serge Vermeersch reached the finals, and it was the latter who won.
Only very few were interested in the Surprise Tournament of 2005. Nevertheless, it became quite a pleasant afternoon with some very exciting tests. And believe or not: the finalists of the last two editions, reached the finals again. This time, Ben won.
Click on the thumbnails and judge for yourself.
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The tournament hasn't been organized any more since then; it has been replaced by the quiz.
As we celebrated our 20th anniversary in 2003, we thought it a good idea to organize another weekend trip for our members and their families ... it had been 3 years already. And so we did. Our destination this time was the Bloso-center "Landhuis de Rhille" in the quiet Belgian polders, in Woumen, close to Diksmuide to be precise. Unfortunately, there weren't too many people interested in joining us. Well, they were wrong because it was just great: a perfect weather, lovely accommodation, nice food, funny activities, karaoke and a perfect organization ... we couldn't have wished it any better!
Here's a few pictures (click on thumbnail to see larger version opening in new window).
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As any club, our members have their own clubshirt. Thanks to a number of willing sponors, we are able to give it for free!
Those sponsors are:
Click the logo to visit their website.
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Next to this shirt, we gave all our adult members a club jacket in 2006. Youth members received a sleeve for their bat.
This was followed by a club shell suit in 2007, thanks to two new major sponsors. Click the thumbnails below for a larger picture.
Therefore we would like to thank:
and
Since our club is alive since the mid 80s, a large number of pictures have been taken. A selection of all those pictures will bu uploaded to our picture archive.
During the 2008 tournament, a new group picture was taken. Click on the small version below for a larger picture.
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