A mysterious wooden leaderboard dating back to 2017 has washed up on a Jersey beach… leaving many Islanders puzzling over what is ‘wiff-waff’ and who the elusive champions are…
The weathered board, found near La Rocque on Sunday afternoon, lists annual winners from 2017 to 2024, but gives little away beyond a series of names and the cryptic title “Wiff Waff Champion”.
The panel lists winners all the way back to 2017 where William LJ won his first victory, with the list abruptly ending in 2024.
The unusual discovery prompted plenty of speculation on Facebook.
One commenter suggested it could belong to “some sort of cricket club going by LRCC”, while admitting there were “a lot of options to narrow it down to”.
Another commenter seemed to recognise one of the names on the board – “John Obbs” (or Hobbs).
“He is the Chairman of the Basketball Journalists Assosciation and frequently covers FIBA and British basketball,” they wrote, adding that he had apparently previously held a recreational ‘wiff-waff’ champion title in Jersey.
For those scratching their heads, ‘wiff-waff’ is an old British name for table tennis.
The term dates back to the late Victorian era, with the sport beginning as a way for the upper class in the 1880s to enjoy themselves through an after-dinner parlour game.
The name is an onomatopoeia that mimics the sound of the ball hitting the bat and table.
The phrase even enjoyed a brief return to the spotlight in 2008, when then-London Mayor Boris Johnson declared during the Beijing Olympics that table tennis had been “invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called wiff-waff!”
As for how the leaderboard ended up in the sea – or who will be crowned the next champion – that’s still anyone’s guess…
