01/09/2026
Today we celebrate 50 years of being Britain's No1 Specialist in the UK.
Tees Sport 50th Anniversary
Tees Sport started trading on 1st September 1976 and the establishment of Tees Sport came from discussions that Alan Ransome was having about the Butterfly distribution in the UK with the Manager of Butterfly Europe, Dr. Simon, where the distributorship was offered to a company who Alan was associated with at the time, Mileta Sports from Heckmondwike in Yorkshire. Dr. Simon suggested that a retailer similar to some of the specialist retailers in Germany at the time should be established in the UK.
Alan was the player/coach of the Ormesby Club who were English Champions and he combined with one of the clubs top players, Nicky Jarvis, to establish Tees Sport. With Alan being a key person within the Butterfly distributors for UK and Nicky being the top Stiga player it meant that lead people in two of the top brands could combine to establish the new specialist retailer. Tees Sport produced the first specialist catalogue and a retail service provide a full range of table tennis equipment including advise on equipment and a bat makeup service and distributed the catalogue to all of the leading clubs and players throughout the UK market. Within a period of weeks the demand for this was very strong and the company became the first leading specialist table tennis supplier in the UK very quickly and has remained number one for the last 50 years.
Tees Sport received a major boost for its services as a result of a major nationwide promotion with the second catalogue which was produced and widely distributed at the time of the 1977 World Championships in Birmingham. The 1977 Worlds was a huge success and BBC Two covered the Championship with 28 hours of television time for sessions of live play during the day and the ‘match of the day’ programme in the evening where Alan had won through interviews to be the lead specialist commentator for the BBC for the ‘77 Championship and Nicky continued to be a top England player.
Tees Sport received a further boost in July 1977 when it launched Tees Sport summer school coaching weeks at Durham University. Jose Ransome, who came to England to be Assistant Director of the World Championships in Birmingham, joined Alan and Tees Sport and was the organiser, with Norma Bonson, for Tees Sport Summer School with Alan and Nicky being the Directors and two of the top coaches along with other top coaches and players which included Matthew Syed, Desmond Douglas, Cheng Xinhua ,Carol Moore, Alan Cooke, Nicola Deaton, Brian Merritt, Brian Burn, Bradley Billington, John Broe and Bob Wiley who were more or less the team of England coaches or players at the time. Approximately 3000 players attended the camps which ran for up to 6 weeks in the summer for over 20 years.
Jose continued to work for Tees Sport and make a major contribution to the company. She was very well known within the sport and this meant that Tees Sport had three leading personalities from the table tennis family heading the company.
The principles that were in place when we first launched Tees Sport was to look to provide a very good service for table tennis players in the UK. To do this we felt we needed to offer all or the very best products from each of the major brands and we have done this from day one, particularly with Butterfly but also with Stiga, Joola, Tibhar, Donic, Xiom and Double Happiness. To provide this service we needed to have large stocks of the products and we have always carried this out to ensure, as far as possible, we are always in stock for every order that comes to us.
Another objective was to offer an efficient and friendly service which includes giving advice on the best bat to play with, but also on every other equipment issues where we have the knowledge in house, for anything we do not, we know who to ask.
We also wanted to provide support and service for the sport, which has happened with our sponsored national associations, counties, league advertising, clubs, players and coaches. These remain our principles and we continue to strive to deliver all this.
The strength of Tees Sport was enhanced further in 1979 when after Mileta ran into some difficulties. Alan took over the Butterfly distributorship and established what became to be Ransome Sporting Goods. The company continued to grow and have stronger associations with the sport through investment and sponsorship which remains as now and has continued for more than 4 decades. These included being official suppliers to the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish associations with British Para and English Schools being added at a later date.
Tees Sport has remained a 100% specialist table tennis company and has continued to employ for most of its staff, people from the table tennis community many of whom are well known in the sport. Our current team with Alan are Phil McCallum, Dave Ashwell, Ryan Morton and Eve Witterick. Over the period, Tees Sport has also supported many of the top clubs, including Ormesby which has been a leading club throughout the whole period and is located close to the Tees Sport shop and offices in Middlesbrough.
Of the top 15 or so clubs currently in the UK, Tees Sport are official suppliers, with Butterfly, to 11. Tees Sport have also had a major impact on support for tournaments where Butterfly tables have been supplied to thousands of tournaments over the period including the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish National Championships at all levels, the World Championships in 1997, European Championships in 1994, and many other international competitions that have been staged in the UK including Commonwealth Games in Manchester 2002, Glasgow 2014, Birmingham 2022 and the Commonwealth Championships in Glasgow 1997 and 2009.
A long list of international players from the UK have been supported by Tees Sport and Butterfly at all levels including Desmond Douglas, Cheng Xinhua, Jill Hammersley-Parker, Denis Neale, Carol Moore, Nicola Deaton, Paul Drinkhall, Gavin Evans Danny Reed, Liam Pitchford, lex Perry, Will Bayley, Euan Walker, David McBeath, Connor Green, Lisa Lomas, Alison Gordon, Anna Hursey, Aaron McKibbin, Sophie Earley, Ella Pashley, Jason Sugrue, Ryan Jenkins, Alan Cooke.
Alan Ransome OBE
Managing Director
Tees Sport
