Monday, January 20, 2025, 7PM
The Clubhouse, Toongabbie
The big news as the year kicked off was the return of Steve ('Di' for those trying to keep up) making his first appearance at a WASPA tournament since 2017!! While a regular Spring League contender, he's been shy when it comes to pitting himself against the wider Sydney subbuteo community. No more!
8 players battled out in the usual Swiss system, 4 players each from the Western Sydney Subbuteo and Northern Falcons clubs. The temperatures had cooled to a very pleasant low-20ºs, allowing the outdoor pitches to come into play on a picturesque evening with a high level of excitment in the air.
Some notable results included Dave upsetting Jonny 1-0 in the first round, before finishing the night on high with a 1-0 victory of the aforementioned Steve Di. He was unable to be consistent with this, unfortunately, to the point of conceding not one, but two stranded goalkeeper goals in a drubbing by Adrian. Franck got his evening off to a flyer with his best result ever over Adrian, a 2-0 victory, before crashing back to earth in the second round against Eliot. Eliot himself had started well with a crushing win over Louis, followed by a 2-0 win over Franck. In his next game he took until the final 30 seconds against Steve De to finally get his bearings on target and score a winning goal, setting himself up well before the final round.
Louis had a tough evening, his first back on the pitch for a number of months, conceding lots of goal until his final game, the Dettre Derby, where he opened the scoring within 20 seconds of flick-off. Unfortunately for Louis, Steve De was able to turn it around with two goals in reply. Jonny had an up and down night, following that opening loss to Dave, with draws against Steve De and Franck and a win over Louis. Steve Di also had a mixed bag of results, drawing against Jonny and in the Steve Derby, before losing narrowly to both Franck and Dave. Adrian exorcised his frustrations at losing to Franck with convincing wins over Louis and Dave, setting himself up for a final round encounter with Eliot to decide the title. He elected to use the homeground advantage of playing on the 1970s cotton pitch which did go some way to helping him. But, in the end, a 0-0 result was enough to leave Eliot at the top of the pile, without conceding a goal all evening, and Adrian being pipped at the post to second place by virtue of Franck's head-to-head win in their earlier encounter.
The pileup of players on similar points in the middle of the table was testament to the overall evenness of the evening's games, with all players loving every second, though Steve Di, unaccustomed to 4 straight games in tournament play, did pull the out the old man complaint about his back becoming sore. No doubt he'll bring himself up to speed with his subbuteo fitness if he can venture out a little more regularly for future tournaments.
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