THE arrival of a ping pong table at a Tottenham youth club has prevented another summer of urban riots, it has emerged.
The table, which came with balls, net and four bats, is thought to represent the tipping point between the area’s youth being bored and being inspired.
Youth worker Donna Sheridan said: We’d tried everything: a ‘bar’ serving Fanta, First Aid classes, even a community theatre play about chlamydia.
Nothing seemed to engage them and I felt we were headed inexorably towards another summer of violence, at least soon as the weather improved.
Then the ping pong table arrived.
Suddenly crews from other post codes with a longstanding history of ‘beef’ were coming over, bringing their own bats in little zip-up cases.”
Local teenager Norman Steele said: When I’m playing ping pong, it’s like I forget about all my problems. I’m in another place, like a ping-pong planet.
Round here, young people feel like theyve been abandoned by the rest of society, a problem I addressed in my own small way last year by stealing 200 AA batteries from Rymans then setting fire to it.
But now I’ve stopped listening to grime and my role models are ping pong players like China’s Liqin Wang and the German Timo Boll.