table tennis from 1970'

Someone said that they (players) likely slowed it down for TV.  Probably that and lack of speed glue in play.

I have shared this video long time ago, but thanks for sharing once again. If I remember correct the discussion was close to: Who is better - elder or newer school players :))

Haha thanks for sharing. Anyone got some more videos like this one? I can't really understand why they not trying to get more spin in the serves, even if it was a long time ago I didn't think that the serves was so far away from todays serves. Nice to see the development! 

just a little perspective: alser and johansson (and stellan bengtsson) - were the state of the art players at that time.  johansson's "hammer" smash was the defining shot of the period.  exhibitions are actually quite boring to 'real' players nowadays...all they do is lob and smash, and do the go around the table thing.  this exhibition was actually fairly decent, in terms of the players actually participating in fairly real rallies

Thank you for sharing. Although i still was not around that time it is still great to see what our beloved sport was like back then.

A few questions about this era, what were the more popular blades and rubbers during this era? And which country were strongest?

Thanks.

Stiga and Butterfly were popular then but there were a lot of other blades that you might not find now.  Two of the most widely used rubbers for top level offensive players in 1970 were Yasaka Mark V and Sriver.  A few years later, Butterfly came out with something called Super Sriver, which was not a big success.  You could use red both sides.  For a much slower rubber, some people would use Yaska Cobra 3 Star (which also came in green and amber color).  There were a lot of other rubbers out there but i couldn't buy them so didn't know about them.

Top countries for TT in 1970 included Sweden, Japan, West Germany, Yugoslavia (long since split into several countries) and Hungary -- and pretty much all of Eastern Europe.  China was still in their Cultural Revolution, and so their great players would emerge in 1971.  Lots of good Soviet and Romanian women in those days, along with of course players from Japan. 

A few of the great players of that era that I followed closely and that I can remember right off the top of my head were the Swedes (Johansson and Alder and a year later Bengtsson, also Kjell Johansson's brother and Carl-Johan Bernhart); Klampar and Joyner from Hungary would emerge a year or two later I think); Surbek and Stipancic from Yugoslavia, also the father of the current Karaksevic; Dennis Neale of England; Shigeo Itoh and Hasegawa of Japan and Eberhard Scholer of West Germany.  Xu Shaofa of China would be seen by 1971, with one of the first really scarey modern looking serves;  and several other equally intimidating Chinese.    

Anyway, that's what I remember, which means I am leaving a lot of stuff out.

Baal,

Baal wrote: A few of the great players of that era that I followed closely and that I can remember right off the top of my head were the Swedes (Johansson and Alder and a year later Bengtsson, also Kjell Johansson's brother and Carl-Johan Bernhart)

Edited by TenNine - 05/27/2015 at 4:40pm

That's some pretty hard hitting there. They are using fairly slow rubbers, maybe 1.5-1.8mm at most. But I also think that we are being fooled by the film speed at perhaps 24fps which can give that dreamy look. The serves are decent but I get the feeling that were trying to get a rally going first before graduating to the 'exhibition' stuff.

TenNine wrote: Baal wrote: A few of the great players of that era that I followed closely and that I can remember right off the top of my head were the Swedes (Johansson and Alder and a year later Bengtsson, also Kjell Johansson's brother and Carl-Johan Bernhart) I remember Carl-Johan Bernhardt! But it's not a name you hear every day these days. He had a great forehand loop and was talked about as THE destroyer of defensive players in the 70's. Apparently he doesn't play at all anymore, but is enjoying life, happily retired from work and table tennis. Here he is a couple of years ago with the "original" Stellan Bengtsson and the rest of the championship-winning team of 1962 :) Carl-Johan Bernhardt, Sven-Erik Ekman, Stellan Bengtsson and Nils Bertil Billing.

Stellan is most definitely not in that photo.

What blades are Johansson  & Alser using....