August – Sports Personality

AUGUST

ASHLEY ROBINSON (TABLE-TENNIS)

Some things are worth waiting for and that was certainly the case for Clogher’s Ashley Robinson who became the first ever Tyrone man to win the Irish National Singles Championship title. The 26-year-old first reached the National decider as a 17-year-old, missing out narrowly before suffering a further three defeats in the decider over the next decade. Thinking his chances of winning the crown had gone, he moved to Australia before Covid-19 cut his stay down under short. That proved fortunate as he arrived back in Ireland in time to compete in the rearranged National’s and the two-time Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games competitor finally got his hands on the title with a 3-1 win over Ryan Farrell.

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Ashley was featured in the Ulster Herald on Thursday, October 8, 2020 

Ashley hopes his maiden Irish Men’s Singles title is just the start

BY CHRIS CALDWELL

It may have taken him almost a decade to clinch his first Irish National Championships Men’s Singles title, but Ashley Robinson hopes that success is just the start.

The Clogher table tennis player reached the final of the tournament for the first time at the age of 17 but defeat then, followed by three more reverses in the showpiece of the event meant the coveted title alluded him.

That was until this year when, as summer turned to autumn, the now 26-year-old defeated Ryan Farrell 3-1 in a tight and tense final to become the first Tyrone winner of the crown and earn the Ulster Herald Sports Personality of the Month Award for August in the process.

Immediately after winning the title, Ashley admitted it would take time for his achievement to fully sink in and even weeks later that is still to happen.

“It’s hard to know if it’s sunk in or not yet. I think it won’t properly sink in until I’m a lot older because I still have ambitions to win another one or two because I feel , and I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I should have already had one or two,” he said. “It’s one title that has alluded me for years, it’s a big bogey off my back.

“A lot of people have said to me that I was the best player never to have won it, which has played on my mind a lot.“But you play a lot of mind games with yourself and you always imagine what you would do when you win it and stuff but when it happens you’re so in the moment you don’t do anything!”

If 2020 had gone as he had hoped, Ashley probably wouldn’t even had played in the National’s this year. He was living and working in Melbourne, Australia, but when Covid-19 struck he was left with no work because the club he was coaching at had to close.

After months of lockdown far from home he made the decision to return home and he decided to put all his energies, initially, into winning the Irish title and now that he has done that he plans on building his coaching business in Dublin and maintaining his love of the game.

“When I came home from Australia I told my parents I was going to do nothing for the six weeks, only practice for the event and a couple of strange heads popped up at me!,” he explained, “But I managed to do it and I always said afterwards that I’d concentrate more on work but I’ll definitely get back to practising in a week or two.

“I’ll probably call on a couple of the older lads, who don’t play as much anymore, friends like Gav Maguire and Paul McCreery. We always still like to meet up and play together because it’s more about the enjoyment of it.

“We’ll meet up for a coffee, then practice for an hour or two and then go out for food, so I’ll probably play with them more than the younger generation because I want to enjoy playing, I don’t want to play for the sake of playing.”

With his first Irish title in the bag and the aspiration for more to follow, Ashley is now looking to the future and pondering his next step as a player.

Having travelled around Europe for many years in his early 20s, living in Sweden for three years, playing there France, Germany, Denmark and Norway, he admits his motivation to return to the nomadic lifestyle has diminished. However, he is still open to offers:

“I have a friend who is playing for a German team at the moment in one of the lower leagues and they might be looking for a number one to play,” he added. “I don’t want to commit to a full season of 18 weekends but if I can find a club that maybe wants a player for seven or eight weekends throughout the year – maybe four before Christmas and four afterwards – I’d probably do that.

“It’s all about playing with your friends, going over for the weekend and enjoying it because I haven’t really got the motivation to do a full season – the travel is just a grind, but I don’t mind doing half of what I’ve done before.”

The opportunity to play at a good level in Europe could work out well for Ashley as he has another decision to make in the coming months – whether or not to focus on training for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022. He has already represented

Northern Ireland at two – Glasgow 2014 and Gold Coast 2018 – and he can see the potential for success but first he must decide if it’s the right move for him at this stage.

“I still haven’t made up my mind if I want to play in it or not. I don’t want to play in it for the sake of playing in it, I want to be committed to it because it will involve two years of training or not doing it at all,” he explained,

“I’m not just going to go for participation. It would be my third Games, so I’ll be having discussions with Paul McCreery as well because me and him have played together since we were 10 years old.

“We’ll be talking together because I know we’ve got old and Owen [Cathcart] is our number one now, but I’d want to play with Paul because we’ve played with each other for so many years and it would probably be my last hurrah so it would be nice to go out with him.

“We’re talking at the moment and he’s back practicing as well, which is good, so we’ll see what happens.”