Description

Bill Rees has been living in the south of France for ten years
working as an itinerant bookseller in Montpellier. The one
thing he misses about England is table tennis. Then he sees
an advert to join a club for “experienced players only” and
veterans. He starts training immediately, he’s forty and not
as fit as he used to be but Bill Rees is returning to the game
a la carte.
Covering one Sunday tournament in the depths of Languedoc
when his team bids to make the National Finals, Bill Rees
produces a deeply felt and deeply funny homage to the
beautiful game of ping-pong. Rees shows the sport for what
it is: painful, exhilarating, tactical, fast (especially when his
club mate Alain is at the table), consuming. All of which is
revealed from the perspective of a Brit playing in French
amateur leagues.
Conveyed is the pain of competition, the agony of losing and
the joys of victory. The reader is also regaled with a Zen-like
insight into the sport.
For all those athletes who dream of glory being around the
corner and never too late.
Contains illustrations by the Monpellier based artist Beachy.