History

The club was founded in 1962 by Willy Smeets and Harry van Hulsel in “Zaal Manders” on the Markt in Valkenswaard. Willy and
Harry were neighbors and thought there was sufficient interest in Valkenswaard for a table tennis club. The biggest
problem they foresaw was the financing of the necessary table tennis tables. Fortunately, the gentlemen were able to convince
the chairman of the Catholic Workers’ Movement (K.A.B.), Harry Vermeulen, to ask his board to finance the tables.

The club soon moved to the better-heated “Zaal Lugano” and continued under the name Lugano. In June 1962, the club joined the
Dutch Table Tennis Association and started with two teams in the competition. To elevate the results and the club as
a whole to a higher level, the first “paid” trainer was hired for the 1964/65 season: Harry Coppens from Atoom-Eindhoven.

At that time, there was also an active table tennis club in Bergeyk, but due to a lack of money and members, that
club wanted to cease operations. The club did own a Heemkerk table tennis table, and some members, including Wout van
Glabbeek and Gerard van Hintum, were willing to play in Valkenswaard. In August 1966, the two clubs merged. Under the
name TTV Reflex, they played in “Bar Central” (the former “Zaal Manders”).

The club quickly realized that playing in a pub environment will not lead to much growth in youth members. Wim
van Gerven suggested talking to “speeltuin De Dennenberg” (De Dennenberg playground). The playground, which also housed a roller
club, had opened its own canteen at its ground, and perhaps table tennis could be played there as well. De Dennenberg itself had already considered
setting up a table tennis activity, so the connection was made quickly.

The move and merger with De Dennenberg was a good decision: many more training hours became available, youth recruitment was
successful and the pleasant atmosphere of the canteen was a big plus. The contacts with the roller club were cordial; they
attended each other’s matches, and friendships developed that last to this day. The youth learned a great deal from Jan
Suiskens, one of the better players the Netherlands had. He was a personality with a warmth that made the young members eager
to do anything for their trainer.

In 1976, a split occurred between the De Dennenberg foundation and the table tennis branch. The club moved to the
sports hall on Amundsenstraat and began a new period of growth and improvement: the 200th member was registered during
the “Amundsen era,” and sponsorship from Nikon made it possible to attract better players to Valkenswaard. Technical leadership
was briefly held by Jan Suiskens, followed by Bert Onnes, and later by Thieu van Vroenhoven. The Amundsen sports hall was also
a convivial time: a spacious canteen where there was ample time to “analyze” matches, both the table tennis matches and the
handball matches of VHC.

The only thing missing for the club was its own facility with a canteen and associated income. The board’s efforts to realize
their own premises paid off in 1982: on May 15, chairman Gerard Slegers opened the hall on Hutakker. Many hours of work by
numerous members made the club’s first “own home” possible. The hall and canteen on Hutakker became the stage for many
sporting successes: the national and European matches of the top team, the many senior and youth teams, and the recreational
and neighborhood teams. The canteen, with Servaas Slegers as host among others, was a pleasant place to be.

In the autumn of 1984, Nikon announced it would stop as the main sponsor. Fortunately, sportcentrum Valkencourt offered to
sponsor the club, including housing. The move to Valkencourt meant playing in an unprecedentedly beautiful facility. It
was also then that the club achieved its greatest sporting success: the championship of the Netherlands. Responsible for
this were Bob Potton, Huang Jianghuo, Milovoy Karekazevics, and coach Bert Schoofs.

The championship was also the last achievement under the name Valkencourt. The sponsor wanted to terminate the ongoing contract
and was willing to pay an severance fee. The board wanted to get the club into calm waters as quickly as possible and
asked the members’ meeting in the spring of 1987 for approval of the termination. In addition to the termination, the members
also agreed to purchase a gymnasium on Hertog Hendrikstraat; this gymnasium was taken over from the municipality of Valkenswaard,
and the club leased the land. Besides table tennis, the special education school also used the hall for their gym classes, and
the reimbursements from the municipality were welcome income.

In the early years of the 21st century, the municipality developed a plan for the new construction of schools on Hendrikstraat.
The plan included school classrooms as well as a large gymnasium (which could be divided into two by a partition). For this new
construction, the land on which the club’s hall stood was needed. The municipality of Valkenswaard and the table tennis
club reached a good solution that both parties could be satisfied with: the club received compensation for giving
up the hall, a preferential right to rent a gymnasium, and its own canteen and board room next to the gymnasium.

In January 2006, the club moved to the new location, Hertog Hendrikstraat 3. The club’s new home was
magnificent: a spacious hall where ten tables could easily be played on simultaneously, a beautiful canteen with a kitchen for
post-match discussions or watching a football match, and a spacious board room. Initially, it took some getting used to the
synthetic gym floor, which made the game much slower than the wooden floor in the old hall. Also, the fire alarms often went
off unnecessarily in the early days. TTV Valkenswaard has now been playing in the facility for over twenty years, longer than
anywhere else before.