Late Return, A: Table Tennis à la carte

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

à 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.