His disappearance left French table tennis orphaned. Jacques Secrtin, Matre Jacques, left us last Wednesday at the age of 71. By reviving the memory of his seventeen individual titles of champion of France, his four European gold medals or his world crown in mixed doubles with Claude Bergeret in 1977. And many others still. Like the one when he came to Vienne thirty-one years ago, almost to the day. On November 28, 1989, Jacques Secrtin and his sidekick Vincent Purkart, who died in 2015, made a stopover for their famous show sensational, unique, spectacular Poitiers, for a meeting organized by ASPTT Poitiers and its chairman Philippe Lion. The poster still reigns in the Saint-Nicolas gymnasium.
By enchanting the incredible exchanges on small and large table, by playing comedy, the two table tennis players had then delighted and entertained the many spectators massed in a packed room still called the Ganterie, but already, unfortunately, orphan of the volleyball player Frdric Lawson-Body, tragically disappeared a month and a half ago.
Despite this painful memory and this still recent trauma, the Stade Poitevin Volley-Ball had also participated in the celebration of the little white ball. The volleyball players had secured the first game by demonstrating with a sheet on the net and playing without seeing each other., remembers Philippe Lion, now co-president of Poitiers TTACC 86, who last believed in Jacques Secrtin during the international tournament in Cognac last year. It had been a very nice evening spent in an entertaining spirit. It was a spectacle.
This unique show not to be missed that the ASTT Chtellerault had hosted, in turn, on May 20, 2000. We wanted to energize the club and it was the best way to do it, explains Jean-Franois Hardouin who had taken over the chairmanship of the chtelleraudais club two years earlier. A thousand people attended this exhibition, it was great. I keep from this passage the great bond between Jacques Secrtin and Vincent Purkart and the closeness they had with the public. We felt the effects afterwards. This gave the club a real boost. But not only.
Because for the two leaders, Jacques Secrtin quite simply allowed the French ping to exist. He took this discipline to the highest level and took it out of ping-pong, advances Philippe Lion. He gave him his letters of nobility, added Jean-Franais Hardouin, who should have seen him again on the occasion of the World Vtrans scheduled for next April in Bordeaux.
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F. Be.
