Polybat

The games

Polybat was developed by Nottingham Trent University PE teacher Doug Williamson and a team of students using the action research method.

Despite the considerable early efforts of NTU and Disability Sport England (DSE) to build awareness, Polybat was not fully developed until 1999.

Due to partnership involving the Youth Sport Trust (YST), the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA) and Nottingham Trent University - with full support from the Camelot Foundation - the more formal aspects of development were achieved, namely:

support
competition
coaching
organisation.

Evolution of Polybat

In 1997 Polybat was included as one of the games in YST’s SportSability 1 bag scheme (produced by Davies Sports) and was later included in SportSability 2.
Wooden prototype games of Polybat evolved into the plastic prototypes and then into full production.
The Camelot Foundation, working in partnership with the YST, ETTA and NTU enabled the kits to roll out nationwide.
ETTA, in association with the British Table Tennis Association for people with Disabilities (BTTAD) have officially recognised Polybat as a table tennis based game.

For further information see the second breakthrough.

As Polybat is being developed within the mainstream national governing body of sport its impact has increased.

ETTA and YST

ETTA promotes Polybat, not only as a game in its own right, but also as a coaching tool for both disabled and mainstream players - particularly very young children.
In 2000 they launched the Premier Club 'Ability' programme, which aimed to promote and support work with disabled people through mainstream clubs. It is hoped that the initiative, which also includes Polybat, will continue to encourage greater numbers of disabled people to participate in both table tennis and Polybat throughout the country.
In May 2002 ETTA, YST and NTU launched the Polybat Skills Awards Scheme which is proving popular with schools using the SportSability equipment.*
In May 2003 the Gentlemen's Night Out Charity donated £3,000 to ETTA for further development of the Skills Award Scheme.

The game

The game of Polybat has a number of similarities to table tennis, for example:

it is played on a table tennis table
the scoring is the same as the mainstream game
basic hitting movements are the same as table tennis.

Polybat may also be used to:

build the confidence of disabled players
improve hand/eye/ball co-ordination.

Polybat competitions

Polybat is included within some of the regional competitions currently organised by Disability Sport England. Since 1999 it has also been included in: