WFW38 – Altona Cup 2019

September 6 & 7

One of the premier table football events on the Melbourne calendar, the 6th edition of the Altona Cup was held over the weekend.

With 15 players competing for honours over 2 days, it promised to be another epic event.

--- Day 1: Rising Stars ---

On the first day of the Altona Cup Table Football festival, we had our Rising Stars category. This category was designed specifically for beginner or irregular flickers, and also for old school Subbuteo players returning to the game.

6 players took part in the Rising Stars category, with all but Charlie Hannington playing in their first Altona Cup. Rosa Deverell continued her meteoric rise – since taking up the game seriously only a few months back – with her maiden WASPA win!

Just as impressive was our youngest player Benedict Ng – at just 6 years old – who took the runners up spot and finishing the day undefeated. Josh Tey pipped his dad Jason to 3rd spot by just a single goal difference. Well done to Charlie for notching his first WASPA match victory and also to newcomer Peter Benholm for a credible performance in his WASPA debut.

--- Day 2: Open and Juniors ---

On the second day, the Open and Junior players combined to form 2 groups of 5 players each. The top 2 finishers from each group would progress to the semi-finals.

In Group 1, Benny topped the group but was lucky to escape an upset defeat to Steve Wright – who finished 2nd in the group on goal difference ahead of Kevin Grant.

In Group 2, Adrian won the group comfortably. 2nd spot again had to be decided on goal difference. This time Adam Deverell squeezed past Benjamin to finish second. However, as best placed Junior, Benjamin took more than some consolation by winning another Junior WASPA title.

Benny eased past Adam 2-0 in the first semi-final. On the other hand, the second semi-final between Adrian and Steve was a much closer affair. The match was still tied 2-2 after extra time and it was onto penalties. Adrian produced some impressive shooting to come out on top and head to the final.

The cup final was a tense affair with both players making uncharacteristic mistakes and not many clear cut chances being fashioned. But Benny was more clinical and took his few chances well for a 3-0 victory over Adrian – a score that didn’t reflect the how the tight match really went. Congrats to Benny Ng for his first Altona Cup victory!

--- Summary ---

To wrap things up, the Altona Cup Table Football festival 2019 was another big success.

It was great to see the event continuing to enjoy strong support and also fantastic to welcome so many new players taking part in their first Altona Cup. The next generation of Pelicans are developing well indeed. And most importantly, all who took part has loads of fun!

May Melbourne’s longest running table football competition continue for many years to come … GO PELICANS !!