'Inspirational' Yapton councillor wins Pride of Table Tennis Award
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The councillor, who lives in Yapton, said she started plying table tennis while in rehab for a cycling accident which broke her spine in 2015. “It was a really really helpful way to relieve stress,” she said. “You just get to whack the ball as hard as you can.”
A year later, having played for some time, she took her new-found passion further when she started playing regularly at Worthing Table Tennis Club. There, head coach Pedro Santos took her under his wing and taught her the tricks of the ping pong trade.
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Hide Ad"One of Pedro’s biggest philosophies, and one of the main philosophies of the whole club is that you concentrate on everybody. It’s this idea that everybody has a right to play table tennis and it’s important to make it accessible to anyone. They gave me a chance to coach, to help out with classes, and assist the other members of the club.
"So he was the one who put me up for the award. It’s a national prize, and to even get to the finals is a massive achievement. So I couldn’t actually believe it when they called my name out. It’s one of those things where you don’t really process it when it happens. I didn’t think it was me until Pedro gave me a nudge and said, ‘Amanda you have to go up.’ It was just a fantastic experience.”
Mrs Newton-Worne said her ultimate dream is to one day compete in the Paralympics, and loves table tennis for the way it makes her feel strong and capable.
"You feel really empowered. When you hit that ball, and it flies past your opponent so fast they just don’t have a chance to hit it back, it’s a really good feeling. It’s such a complex game – really intelligent. It’s not just about hitting a plastic ball when you’re drunk on holiday, there’s a lot of strategy at play, so you have to learn all these tips and tricks and that inspired a lot of love in me.”