Charlotte Bardsley from accidentally taking up table tennis to competing at Commonwealth Games
A shortage of badminton courts proved the unusual starting point to Charlotte Bardsley’s table tennis career.
It was a decade ago Bardsley, then aged 10, arrived at Kidderminster’s Heathfield School badminton club to find there wasn’t room.
“I needed an after-school activity but they didn’t have enough space for me to play,” she explains. “So they put up a table tennis table for me instead and I started playing from there.
“I enjoyed it straight away. I love how many elements there are to the sport. It’s a lot like chess in that there is a good deal of strategy involved. You never get bored, there is always so much to learn.
“Had there been a spare court for me to play badminton, then who knows what would have happened? But I’m glad it turned out this way.”
Since getting her first taste of the sport, Bardsley has not looked back, winning her first England junior title at the age of 12 and following it up with successes at under-15, U18, U19 and earlier this year, U21 level.
A former member of Wolverhampton’s Woodfield Table Tennis Club, Bardsley also took bronze in the senior women’s event at April's national championships, together with a silver in the doubles, before going on to book her place at Birmingham 2022 through the Team England qualifying tournament.
“The Commonwealth Games have been my goal for a few years,” she says. “It doesn’t come around very often and I knew I would have to work hard for it.
“For my family it is such a big relief, more than anything. They know how hard I have been working for it and they have been supporting me a lot. It has been a team effort.
“I am really proud to be playing in the Games because it is such a big, multi-sport event. To be playing on home soil and in my home city, it is great.”
For Bardsley, the Games also represent something of a homecoming, two years on from moving to Germany in search of the tougher competition required to take her game to the next level.
Based at the Topspin Sports Academy, the base of numerous international players, in the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling, she has played for TTC Langweid in the Second Division of the German League.
After the Games, meanwhile, Bardsley will move to the University of Cambridge, where she will study history and politics. But there will still be plenty of trips back to Germany to play for First Division outfit SV Boblingen.
“I moved to Germany to try and improve my game. That is what you have to do to get better, you have to go abroad,” she explains.
“I’m not going to deny, it has been challenging. I left home and was basically on my own in a foreign country. My German isn’t great.
“But it has also been a very rewarding experience. I play six hours a day, every day. Sometimes I don’t think people understand the sacrifice it takes. I was prepared to do that to make the Commonwealth Games. There was only so much I could do in England.”
Bardsley, who will play in the doubles, mixed doubles and team competition, is eager to put on a show for the home crowd in what will be her first major competition in the West Midlands.
“I played a tournament in Worcester previously but this will be the closest I have ever competed to home. It is going to be something I have never experienced before,” she says.
“When I am playing in Europe or even in a different part of the UK my parents and family can only watch online. Having so many people I know supporting me is going to be great. I’m determined to put in the best performance I can.”
