Try as they might, efforts over the past twenty years to promote football as the universal people’s sport, have always rung a little hollow to me. Maybe if we consider football as the people’s spectator sport, the case becomes a lot more convincing. But in terms of grassroots participation, ping pong, or table tennis as the European enthusiasts prefer, gets the vote every time. Just witness what happens when you set up a couple of tables in a public place and leave a some bats and balls seductively lying around. In no time at all the tables are full and a queue is forming to be next on.

When I set up in schools, the ancillary staff just can’t wait to get their hands on the equipment the minute the kids have gone back to class; cleaning staff, dinner ladies, caretakers and teaching assistants. Oh, and I shouldn’t omit to include the teachers and head-teachers themselves. And at the end of the day, parents can’t wait to see if they can still fend off the challenge from their little offspring. Most of the above mentioned are as likely to get involved in a football match as fly to Mars but give them a chance on the ping pong table and they will be there in an instant.

There is something highly enticing about table tennis that no other sport seems to have. It’s highly competitive at any level yet the fun element is always lurking just below the surface. Perhaps it reminds people of the sunny, carefree days of their youth, or perhaps it’s the lust for some unarmed combat that resides in all of us human apes. Watch the faces of people playing and it’s a bazaar mixture of deadly intent and all the fun of the fair. Whatever it is that explains this fascination and attraction for ping, across all ages, cultures and class, table tennis just won’t go away. Even the high tech toys of today must pay homage to its attractiveness as Wii, X-Box and the rest are forced to include ping on their menus. It is not surprising then that table tennis, although universally ignored in this country as a serious sport, is never out of the media spotlight. In this election campaign, both Cameron and Brown have allowed themselves to be photographed with bat and ball in hand. If Clegg does badly on election-day he will now know the reason why.

Rock stars, footballers and any number of artists and celebrities all seem to think it great PR to be seen playing ping. From the down and out youth clubs of our neglected housing estates to the high society of Hollywood and New York, table tennis is rapidly becoming the game of choice. And in our schools, table tennis is enjoying something of a renaissance. One can even imagine the City high flyers from Goldman and Sachs, JP Morgan, and the rest of the financial mafia, ensconced in their corporate towers in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and New York, getting in a few games of ping in between their shady financial deals. And as China relentlessly becomes the pre-eminent power of the 21st century, our love affair with ping pong is only likely to get stronger. One can only hope that big money does not start flowing into the game destroying that fairytale pleasure that has insidiously undermined so many of our other sporting pursuits.The latest media bite on ping arrived via my Bank Holiday Monday Guardian. 3/5/10. Under the heading; ‘Why ping-pong is thriving in our parks’, Emily Cronin gives table tennis a good hearing. I’m sure she will not mind if I offer ‘sporting polemics’ readers a sizable chunk of her article. The full article is available of course on The Guardian website.

The concrete ping-pong table crouches invitingly in a paved rectangle just inside London Fields Park in Hackney. It’s the first unambiguously sunny day of spring, there are acres of sun-warmed lawns but it’s the table-tennis table that’s attracting the crowds. ‘We used to play at a youth centre when we were kids, and seeing this on the common brought it all back,’ says 39 year-old Darren Holding, pausing between matches between Miguel Barrett. They have been friends since childhood. The amount of people that use this court and it hasn’t been vandalised it feels like everybody in the community knows they need it,’ says Holding. Others seem to agree, for dozens of table tennis tables are popping up in parks and public spaces across the UK. In Bristol, the city council has installed tables in three parks and more are on the way. ‘It’s a bit of a snowball effect’, says Nicola Ferris, the council’s sports development officer. In London, 47 tables have arrived over the past month, from Dulwich to Regent’s Park, as part of a pilot programme from the English Table Tennis Association. Table tennis tables in public spaces are a common sight in France, Germany, China and Ethiopia. Now they are finally taking off here. ‘We’re giving this a go,’ says Diccon Gray from the association. Indeed, the number of places to meet for a quick game will triple this summer with an initiative called Ping London, which will put 20 tables in Trafalgar Square in July, with a further 95 tables in busy areas from Tate Modern to Heathrow Airport. ‘Ping pong is probably the only sport where you can be an absolute novice, pick up a bat, and have fun’, says Colette Hiller, from non-profit arts organisation Sing London, which is orchestrating the programme. Sport England’s latest Active People Survey indicated a 9,900 person increase in adults who reported playing table tennis at least once a week.

So Ping, the People’s sport, begins to flex its muscles. It can only be a matter of time before deadlock in a hung parliament will be settled over the Westminster table tennis table. Ping pong diplomacy could be back on the political agenda very soon.