On Saturday mornings, it is a bee hive of activities liken to the ever busy Watt Market of Calabar at the U. J. Esuene Stadium in Calabar, Cross River State.
As I walked into the famous “CANAAN TABLE TENNIS CLUB” building, I glanced around, watching players battling each other in the old popular Chinese game of Ping Pong which is called table tennis now.
As I was about leaving, I was captivated by the display of mad skills by a young girl. She was like a crazed, demonized person who beat everyone silly who handed the table tennis bat against her at the other end of the tennis table board.
Way back my secondary school days, I was the undisputed champion of table tennis which was one of my favorite sport. Even at the University level, I was Invincible in the Sports and no one ever had beaten me.
This merited me the slot to represent my School (University of Port Harcourt) at the 2004 NUGA game hosted in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Highly motivated, I had to take up the little girl on a challenge as I was cocky, insisting I will demolish her in a matter of minutes.
Surprisingly, I was beaten back and blue by this female prodigy in two straight sets.
I was weaken by my first ever career loss and to make it worse I was defeated by a 9 years old girl by the name. ESTHER AKPABIO.
Esther walked up to me after the game, looked into my face and said, “I have beaten you today, I will beat you tomorrow and forever more.”
She further boasted, “I will be better than Aruna and be a future world champion.”
She smiled and walked away happily like a fat kid who was given big boxes of her favourite cakes to devour all alone.
I wept like a baby when I got home.
Let’s not dwell on my miserable defeat, let’s focus on this article.
I reminisced the past Glory days of the Cross River State own, Canaan table tennis club which was home to pool of talents.
In particular of such talent were Nigerian professional female players, Cecelia Otu and Offiong Edem who came through the ranks of the club and did National exploits for Nigeria.
The duo won two gold medals in the women’s doubles at the 2007 All Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria and the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.
The Canaan Table Tennis Club of Calabar represented the Nigeria in the female category in the 2017 Africa Table Tennis Clubs’ Championships in Agadir, Morocco. The team with the likes of Offiong Edem, Cecilia Otu Akpan, Funke Oshonaike and Janet Friday Effiom qualified to the semi-finals of the tourney after they beat the home team, Morocco and ACB Table Tennis club of Algeria to advance the next round.
In 2017, Cecelia Otu emerged as the National Table Tennis Women Champion as she defeated Fatimah of Lagos State with 4-0 victory to clinch gold in the singles and qualified to represent Nigeria at the 2018 Commonwealth Games at Australia.
Two years ago, the Chairman of Cross River State Sports Commission who also served from 2013 till date as the national Vice President South South zone and board member of the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation, Hon. Orok Otu Duke commissioned the professional standard Taraflex floor from China in the Canaan Table Tennis Club.
This feat certifies the Canaan Table Tennis Club of Calabar to be one of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) approved table tennis venues in Nigeria that can outrightly host national and international table tennis competitions.
