ANDREA Holt is still the queen of English table tennis, even as a part-timer.

The woman who learned the game in the Bury and Bolton leagues destroyed the opposition to lift the English National Championship title for the fourth time. She tore through her rivals and then ripped into the sport's officiating body accusing them of being responsible for a dramatic drop in standards in the women's game in the last few years.

The 32-year-old, back living in her native Ramsbottom after a few years in Radcliffe, has been at the top of the tree for 15 years, competing at two Olympic Games and every other elite event throughout the world and the top leagues in Europe. She now coaches more than she plays but still proved too strong for the best the country has to offer and won the final by an embarrassing 4-0 margin.

Her performance made a mockery of the decision not to include her in last year's Commonwealth Games team even though she was desperate to do so.

"It just shows there is no-one coming through from the National Centre," said Andrea, who dropped her one and only set in the quarter final where she beat Bury's Lindsay Thornton who had earlier provided the shock of the championship by beating number one seed and defending champion Nicola Deaton in the first round.

"They set up the National Centre in Nottingham to take the place of the regional centres of excellence and it has set the sport back. We need the regional centres back because as things stand players have nowhere to play regionally at a high level. The standards in the women's game have dropped a long way and it is down to the structure of the sport. There are full time players and they are paying top money for coaches from abroad but the fact that I can win the title so easily and I'm only part-time shows how far things have been allowed to slip.

"Before the regional centres of excellence were scrapped and this national centre started we used to be in the European Super Division. Now we are two divisions down in the Second Division. We were ranked 10 in the world and three or four in Europe. Now we are about 25 to 30 in the world and about 20 in Europe."

Andrea, seeded number seven for the National Championships, added: "The final is now like a first round game which shows the players are nowhere near as good as they used to be and it is all because of the structure of the sport. But there's an election coming up and hopefully something can be done to put things right. We need the regional centres back because we would have more chance of being successful with those than with one national centre."

"For all the money that was put into being successful in the Commonwealth Games we failed to win a single medal and produced the worst results ever in the Games. "I would have played for nothing if they had asked me and I know if I had been there we would have come away with a bronze medal but they didn't ask me because I had not been on their programme for two years."