TT Leagues continues to develop and grow, with a series of new features in the latest software update expected to keep the positive trend going.

The improvements to the league management platform include new formats for Knock-out and Handicap competitions, while TT Leagues is also being used for a wide range of national competitions.

By the end of the 2024/25 season, the number of competitions managed with the software is expected to double compared with its first season in 2019/20.

What’s new?

Earlier this month, TT Leagues rolled out Version 2.5.0 across all league sites, introducing new features developed during the summer which will help administrators manage their competitions more effectively, and provide an improved user experience.

The new features include:

• Improved functionality for creating knock-out and handicap competitions
• Additional data downloads to assist with league competitions management
• Greater control over the competitions and articles that are displayed on the homepage
• More information to flag players who have incorrect membership type
• A wider range of reserve management options
• Improving the archive of previous seasons
• Search function to identify players in the local league ranking system
• Options that will facilitate the production of “Match Reports”
• Additional filters in “Fixtures & Results” to help check for score errors
• A Contact Form on the homepage to avoid the need to provide email details

Further updates will be published in the next few weeks, including:

• The ability to share News Articles across a range of sites
• Giving greater visibility to show when Divisional Overrides have been set
• Enhanced table ordering procedures when teams are tied on Points Awarded
• “Split Division” functionality for local league formats

More leagues come on board

Every season, local leagues start using TT Leagues for the first time, and their feedback is overwhelmingly positive, particularly on the functionality meeting their needs and the support that is provided.

Dale Aitkenhead, one of the admins of Northumbria League, says: “Our league started using TT Leagues this season. We’d looked at TT Leagues a couple of years ago and decided at the time that we were not convinced it had the functionality we wanted. However, we’d seen other leagues using the Table Tennis England offering and took the plunge this season given the extra development that has taken place.

“One aspect in particular we love is the ability to run our handicap cup competition using TT Leagues which despite not being fully developed definitely makes running the competition a lot easier as before the draw and actually running the competition was done manually and required a lot of intervention and work from myself. This is now done automatically by TT Leagues and even though it’s new – our members love it.

“I set everything up and found the tutorial videos very helpful. There have been a few teething problems, and I’ve had to ask for help on several occasions given my lack of knowledge and functionality of the site in certain aspects. What I would say is that Neil Hurford and the developers have taken on board my observations and concerns without question and are always looking to make improvements or put in place fixes and work arounds. I’d definitely recommend TT Leagues to others.”

The new formats have significantly expanded TT Leagues’ capabilities. It has been a surprise (but a pleasant one) to find out how many KO competitions are organised by local leagues. In addition, these new formats open the way for providing “tournament” formats which will enable clubs, leagues and counties to manage their “closed” tournaments within TT Leagues. We are still working towards that goal, though no date for implementation has been set.

The launch of the TT Leagues App has facilitated the direct entry of results via smart phone as matches progress, reducing the burdens on League Administrators. This in turn leads to results being published more quickly – which then drives interest in the competition. There are still many untapped opportunities for the use of the TT Leagues App that we want to explore.

The ongoing development programme since the launch of TT Leagues has allowed the platform to serve not just local league competitions but also regional leagues (such as Lancashire & Cheshire league and the Midland league) and also county leagues (in Yorkshire and in Oxfordshire).

But the most striking wider applications have related to using TT Leagues for national competitions – British Clubs Leagues, County Championships and Cadet & Junior British Clubs Leagues (formerly NCL/NJL).

For BCL, results are entered at the venues where matches are played. Players and coaches can access the results in “near real time” using their smart phones via the browser or the TT Leagues App. Data from Google Analytics indicates that there are between 1500 and 2000 visits to the BCL website during each of the weekend sessions. Similar “near real time” entry of results also takes place in the Premier Weekend sessions of the County Championships.

For the BCL competitions, an online entry system has been developed and is now in its third year of operation. This streamlines the entry system for the competition and avoids generating a massive paper trail that characterised the previous system. For this season, the online entry system was extended to include the Cadet & Junior BCL and it is expected it will be adopted by the County Championships in due course.

There are now more than 160 websites running TT Leagues software, comprising 140 local leagues, four regional/county leagues and 18 national competitions, many running multiple competitions. Last year, more than 250 competitions were run through the platform, a figure we expect to rise this season, meaning the total will have almost doubled in the five years of the platform’s operation.

Table Tennis England remains committed to further development of TT Leagues.

As the software continues to grow, ongoing investment in the underlying infrastructure will ensure it not only maintains but also improves speed, reliability and performance. This will support the 24/7, year-round availability and reliability, which is both our objective and our key priority.

While much has been achieved, TT Leagues is only beginning to tap the potential of technology in managing table tennis competitions.