The Altona Cup 206 for Carl Young

Western Flickers Melbourne 5th WASPA – the Altona Cup! (20 Aug 2016)
Reported by Benny Ng (Melbourne, Australia)

Western Flickers Melbourne was formed to cater for players living on the north/west side of Melbourne and provide more opportunities to play the wonderful game of Subbuteo table football.
If you are reading this and new to Subbuteo table football, watch this video (https://youtu.be/2GwgHF8IrXQ) for a brief introduction to the game.

Western Flickers hosted the 3rd edition of the annual Altona Cup (which is also WTF’s 5th WASPA event). This is one of the biggest events on the Melbourne table football calendar and has sentimental significance to many local players. As a community and social focused event, many of the current players have either been first exposed to Subbuteo or re-engaged with the game via this event.
For the Altona Cup 2016, we had a great turnout of 10 adults and 6 kids taking part in the Open and Junior categories respectively – making it the biggest table football tournament in Melbourne this year by far!

Junior category

Junior “veterans” Benjamin Ng and Aidan Deverall were the pre-tournament favourites with the Briffa Boys – Harrison and Alex – being dark horses after impressive showings in the social Friday Flick sessions. They were joined by Charlie in only his second Subbuteo outing and newcomer Charlotte in her very first tournament.
The category was run as a simple round-robin ladder giving everyone lots of game time and an opportunity to play each other.
It turned out to be Benjamin’s day. He was in top form and comfortably took out the Junior championship undefeated. In a minor upset, Harrison just pipped Aidan for the runners-up spot with a big thanks to his brother Alex who managed to hold Aidan to a draw.
Charlotte impressed everyone with some very good flicking on her debut, and Charlie also showed great improvement since his last outing in March.
Most importantly, all the kids had great fun and loving the game. It’s great to see the Junior scene at Western Flickers developing well.

Open category

The 10 players in the Open category were split into 3 groups. The top 3 WASPA ranked players – Carl, Luke and Benny – were spread across the groups and the rest randomly allocated.
Group A – Carl Young, Simon Briffa, Chris Hirst
Group B – Luke Radzminski, Choon Lee, Adam Deverall, Kevin Grant
Group C – Benny Ng, Christos Garagounis, Fauzi Rahmen

Group stages
In Group A, Carl easily won both his matches leaving Simon and Chris to battle it out for second spot. Simon came out on top with a thrilling 2-1 victory over Chris to snare the coveted second spot.
In Group B, Luke romped to the top and the experienced Adam finished second. Kevin got his first WASPA win with a narrow 1-0 win over Choon.
In Group C, Christos opened with an admirable draw against Benny. But Benny just managed to pip Christos to the group top spot on goal difference by a single goal!

Final Stages

Cup Pool

Kevin and Luke

As expected, the seeded players were true to their WASPA ranking and qualified for the Cup Pool. The dominant Carl comfortably beat Luke and Benny by the same 2-0 margin to clinch the championship – his 3rd Altona Cup win in a row! This also meant that Luke and Benny were on even standing going into their final game. It proved to be a thrilling game with Luke coming back from behind twice to force a draw. Luke won the subsequent shots and to finish as tournament runners up.

Plates Pool
The 2nd placed player from each group were placed in the Plates pool to determine the tournament fourth to sixth placing. Adam’s defeat of Christos proved to be enough to win the pool. Well done to Simon for finishing a very credible 6th overall in his tournament debut!

Bowl Pool
There was a four way battle for the consolation places with very close games. A number of Friday Flick practices under Kevin’s belt proved to be the difference. Kevin won the the pool undefeated followed by Chris, who was rediscovering Subbuteo after decades away.
Congrats to Choon for scoring his first Subbuteo goal and also winning his first WASPA game. The win was enough to avoid the wooden spoon. Credit also to Fauzi for a good showing despite not playing Subbuteo since Nov last year.

Carl Young receives his trophy from Benny Ng

Conclusion

Carl vs Luke

Thanks to all who attended for helping to make it an extremely successful WASPA event. There was even time for a friendly team match to give everyone a taste of a team contest. It was a big hit and everyone loved it!
Finally and most importantly, everyone has loads of fun and went home happy. Subbuteo was indeed the winner.
GO WEST!

The final Open standings are:
1. Carl Young
2. Luke Radzminski
3. Benny Ng
4. Adam Deverell
5. Christos Garagounis
6. Simon Briffa
7. Kevin Grant
8. Chris Hirst
9. Choon Lee
10. Fauzi Rahmen

Bejamin: junior winner

The final Junior standings are:
1. Benjamin Ng
2. Harisson Briffa
3. Aidan Deverell
4. Alex Briffa
5. Charlotte
6. Charlie Hannington

P.S. If anyone is interested in taking part in future Western Flickers events or just popping by for chat and look-see, please visit the Western Flickers Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/WesternFlickers/) or send an email to bennidokk@yahoo.com