A fixture of Northern Ireland's Wellington Table Tennis Club, Jimmy O'Hara just celebrated his 90th birthday. O'Hara picked up table tennis as a teenager in the 1940s. He first played on a makeshift table in his father's garden shed. Among the quirks of the garden gameroom were the seams running down the middle of the table. O'Hara's father asked him what he thought of playing on it. "I said, 'I go one way and the ball goes the other,'" he recalled. His father replied, "That'll teach you to move your feet." This was in the 1940s. In the ensuing decades, O'Hara's nimble feet carried him to spots on both the Irish and Northern Irish teams. Notable among the greats with whom O'Hara has crossed swords over the years is Viktor Barna, who won a record five men's singles world championships. A little slower but armed with a lifetime of experience, O'Hara still plays in league games as needed to even out the teams. "Well, I still enjoy it, you know," he said. "I keep thinking of the past. 'I should be playing a lot better,' you know. 'I should be more to the fore.' But that's all in the mind, I suppose." How about the younger players? "Well," he said, "they are very good .They're very understanding but sometimes they get a little bit disappointed because they lose maybe to me. "But that's good. You always learn from your opponents. You learn by losing. That was the attitude we had years ago. If somebody beats you, you learn from your mistakes so your game improves." Just as his father taught him not to plant his feet, O'Hara continues to impart his hard-won wisdom to the next generation. The seeds planted in the garden shed continue to sprout new life.

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