(I am indebted to the Rayne website (raynettc.co.uk) for the bulk of this information)
Rayne’s history dates back to 1976 when Celia Fowler (later Mrs Whybrow), Paul Chinnery and Ian Whiteside decided to form a club in the village. They set themselves up in the Old Schoolroom after an approach to the rector and borrowed a rickety table from the youth club who met next door.
They used this for their first competitive play, in the summer league, when they were joined by Roy Franklin, but needed something of a higher standard if they were to compete in the league proper the following season. Fortunately Crittall Witham had one to spare albeit of a distinctly unusual shade of green.
Three more players – Paul Durell, Chris Harrigan and Clive Hutton – came forward after the club put an article in the village magazine, enabling them to put two teams in the league in September 1976.
To quote from the website:”The Old Schoolroom was an interesting venue. It was certainly the oldest in the league, and in the backroom probably the coldest as well. The front room did at least have an old coke stove, a fairly noxious contraption but it did keep the temperature above freezing.”
The first season was a modest one in which the first team finished ninth in division two and the second team sixth in division four. But there was a distinct improvement in the second season – third in division two, third in division three and a new C team second in division five.
The next season brought the first silverware when the B team won division three.
The first team – Ian Whiteside, Brian Hill, Celia Whybrow and Ray Lewis - were one of three teams who were promoted to the first division that year and, despite finishing bottom in their first season, that is where they have stayed ever since. Whiteside has had the longest unbroken run in the first division of any of the league’s current players.
The club had by now outgrown the Old Schoolroom and after three years moved to the old Village Hall. The building was due for demolition once the extension to
the main village hall was completed, but it was agreed to leave it standing on the basis that the table tennis club and the Scout Group used and maintained it. With the hall available four nights a week, the club could now expand and by 1982 had eight teams.
Again to quote from the website: “The hall had some of the characteristics of the Old Schoolroom. It could be very cold in mid winter – it was not unusual to have several days when the water was frozen and Chris Harrigan was often called on to repair the almost inevitable leaks. On the plus side, the room was an ideal size, with plenty of space, good lighting and a good floor. Our trusty table travelled with us to the hall, still in its original light green, and still playing well.”
By 1985, the club’s playing standard was at its height. The A team of Terry Pleasance, John Leith, Mark Bannister and Mike Shorten took the first division title with the B team of Dean Andrews, Paul Whybrow and Ian Whiteside – a combination that stayed together for around 20 years – in third place.
In 1986, it was proposed to build a second extension to the village hall by adding a doctor’s surgery. The club asked for a second storey to be added for their use, a request that was granted so long as they paid the additional cost. With the help of a Sports Council grant, the club managed to raise the funds and, after a number of problems, the room finally became available for play in October 1989.
A bonus of the fund-raising efforts was that there was a small surplus, which enabled the club to buy a new table, this time in a more conventional colour.
The A team had to wait 16 years for their next division one title, but the club’s teams have won other divisions regularly and made something of a specialty of winning the handicap cup which by 2004 had come their way ten times, half of those wins coming from the A team fighting their way doggedly through hefty handicaps. The A team also won the league and the team knock out cup in 2004, making them only the second team to lift all three in one season.
