Fiji Connection
Question: What do Kshatriya Hall, based on the Fiji island of Viti Levu and Springburn Sports Centre have in common?
Answer: They’re both on the No 37 bus route? No, the simple answer is that Steve Reilly has played at both venues.
Steve has recently been in contact with WoSTTL - A few months ago he Googled Andy Fleming and Table Tennis and discovered the sad news of Andy’s death. He then emailed WoSTTL and here begins the connection.
Steve started his TT journey playing at Springburn Sports Centre in 1976 under the guidance of Andy Fleming and trained with Eleanor Meenan together with Charlie Scott at Cumbernauld YMCA.
Steve continues “I joined the Royal Navy in 1977 and only met up with Andy once again at a tournament in England and was awestruck that he actually remembered me! His memory will always be with me and in tribute to my TT mentor, the new "blocking coaching aid" that I have just built and tested on my development squad will now be named Fleming's Loop Blocker”
Steve, recently retired from the Navy, has lived in Fiji for the last seven
years. He is devoting much of his time to coaching primary school children in an effort to develop Table Tennis in the South Pacific. He is about to run the 1st Lautoka Primary Schools Championships, taking place on the same day as the start of the Olympics.
Steve has tried to run his training camps the way Andy ran his coaching sessions in Springburn and Bellahouston but with a little military style discipline chucked in.......... and it seems to be working. At the recent Fiji Games, some of his squad beat Senior National ranked players.
“After hearing me mention Andy several times during coaching sessions (as I tell them some old-time TT stories) they have now read about him and have adopted him as their coach too and hope that one day he would refer to them as “his players”. They love me here because I’m from Scotland, perhaps because that is where Rugby sevens originated.............. I tell them that Scotland is where Table Tennis truly originated along with Television, trains, telephones and most “Wonders of Engineering” in existence today!”
Steve reckons Andy Fleming is already a legend in the West of Fiji!
Andy, I’m sure, would approve of Steve’s dedication and Primary Schools’ development and is a great example of the legacy and influence that Andy continues to have.
Steve can be contacted at: Lautoka Table Tennis Association, 8 Chameli St, Waiyavi, PO Box 1720, Lautoka, Viti Levu, Fiji Islands divetek@connect.com.fj
