Hobart tournament in April 2019

There will be a tournament in Hobart, Tasmania (Australia) in April 2019. Interested players can contact Yago at hobarttfc@gmail.com for more details!

Marco Bonciani winner in Firenze

Earlier this week the club of Firenze was holding a second WASPA tournament for this season. There were 12 players taking part and this time Marco Bonciani took the honors after defeating Mirko Masini in the final. Luca Pini and Tiberio Becucci made it to the semi-finals while Cabriele Casati won the consolation tournament. Thanks to all the players for another good evening of Subbuteo!

Some more results from Autsralia - November 2018

Several tournaments recently took place in Australia.

In Perth, the usual group of six players met for the November tournament with a group stage and then knock-out games. Inthe end, Singapore's Tan Yew Loy (aka Mark Ryan) defeated Ross McNulty in the final (2-0) while Alan Kimber defeated Chris Thorn in the game for the third place. Hugh Best was 5th and Ron Byrne was 6th.

Sydney TFC also had a good event with 7 players taking part. Congratulations to Eliot Kennedy for the win and to Hermann Kruse to reach the final beating respectively Oliver Ollnow and Fabrizio Coco in the semi-finals.
The Sydney Christmas Cup will be held on December 9.

In Melbourne the Western Flickers had a great event called "WFW30 - Flicks in the Sticks III" last week-end with 14 players competing. The Open category was a group of 9 players and Benny Ng finished on top of the league with 8 wins while Adrian Connolly was runner-up and Christos Garagounis was third. In the Junior section, Charlotte Wright finished on top of a group of 5 willy Billy Wright was runner-up.

Final standings in Open category:
1. Benny Ng
2. Adrian Connolly
3. Christos Garagounis
4. Steve Wright
5. Anthony Madiona
6. Kevin Grant
7. Benjamin Ng
8. Beth Eveleigh
9. Juliette Browne

Final standings in Junior category:
1. Charlotte Wright
2. Billy Wright
3. Liam Browne
4. Jayden Truter
5. Sean Browne

More subbuteo action in Belgium

Some events have recently been held in Templeuve. Last Wednesday the "promotional" event in the agenda of the Templeyuve United club had a good turnout of seven players (+ three other who didn't compete). Michaël Dupret (MT Tournai) took the honors after winning his four games while clubmate Jean-Luc Canfin was runner-up. It was also the first appearance of French player Sébastien Sorge in a tournament.

Top 3 of the evening: Canfin-Dupret-Marain jr

Final standings:
1. Michaël Dupret (MT Tournai)
2. Jean-Luc Canfin (MT Tournai)
3. Benjamin Marain (Warcoing Ducks)
4. Abdurahman Fahad (Templeuve Utd)
5. Arthur Clique (Templeuve Utd)
6. Sébastien Sorge (Templeuve Utd)
7. Islam Belahcen (Templeuve Utd)

Players at the tournai tournament

On November 22, the players from the Tournai area had the visit of Romania's Cezar Stoilescu. Cezar couldn't make it in the previous day so the club of Tournai asked to play a WASPA tournament in the premises of Templeuve. With 11 players taking part, the evening was a success. Geoffrey Marain didn't manage to win another WASPA title as he finished the evening with 2 wins and 2 draws. Vincent Coppenolle was a bit lucky to take the first place with 10 points while Stéphane Lambert had 9 and Michaël Dupret was third with more goals scored than Geoffrey Marain. Cezar Stoilescu proved to be an excellent player and took a well-deserved 6th place!

Top 3 of the evening

Final standings:
1. Vincent Coppenolle (Templeuve Utd)
2. Stéphane Lambert (Yokohama)
3. Michaël Dupret (MT Tournai)
4. Geoffrey Marain (AS Hennuyer)
5. Matthias Averlant (Templeuve Utd)
6. Cezar Stoilescu (Bucharest)
7. Benjamin Marain (Warcoing Ducks)
8. Jordan Bonte (Templeuve Utd)
9. Abdurahman Fahad (Templeuve Utd)
10. Sébastien Sorge (Templeuve Utd)
11. Islam Belahcen (Templeuve Utd)

Players in Bande

Also on November 22, another "promotional" event took place in Bande with 4 players. Bruno Mottet (Temploux) won his three games to lift the trophy. Henri Grosdent was runner-up with Aurore Grosdent and Lulani Verhoeven also taking part.

Finally, the first tournament of the season in Auvelais had a good turnout of 7 players from 6 different clubs. There was a big surprise in the final when Jean-Pierre Genart defeated Jérôme heyvaert in the sudden death to win the tournament. Fabrice Guyaux and Pol serwy reached the semi-finals.

Marcos Kalopsidiotis is the new leader in Cyprus

After a long hiatus Subbuteo was back in Cyprus this week-end. The Famagusta club held the first stage of the national circuit and it was a good way to celebrate the new premises of the club. Giorgos Zangylos was very enthusiast about the new project. For the first event, seven players were taking part with four different teams of the country being represented. Giorgos Zangylos reached the final but had to accept the victory of Marcos Kalopsidiotis who is therefore the first leader of the national circuit. Panagiotis Panaretos and Marios Nikolaou are the semi-finalists of the day. Congratulations to all the players invoved.

Paul Eyes wins Delaware Valley Open

The 2018 Delaware Valley Open has been held last week-end in Avondale, PA and after an eight year drought, Paul Eyes is your 2018 Delaware Valley Open Champion!! Paul defeated Daniel Cranston 3-1 in the final game to win the title. It is always a pleasure putting this event on for everyone!

(Report by Andrew Zunino)

End of Year Pretoria event with an International entry

Padro Araujo and Julian Van der Merwe

Sunday 18 November 2018, Pretoria, South Africa: 
The 2018 edition of this event attracted 11 players - 7 in the Open Section and 4 in the Promotion Section.
It was a great honour for Pretoria Flickers Club to welcome Pedro Araujo from the Portugese club OS Belenenses, as this just reinforced the spirit of this great sport of ours - to kindle new and lasting friendships!
In the Open Section both Pedro Araujo and Jayden vd Merwe won their 4 allocated matches, and as there was no "head to head" to choose from between these two players, the event was forced into a final play-off match!

Pre-tournament favourite (and 2017 defending champion), Bevin Reed did not have a good day trying out his new CLR bases and as a result only managed to win 1 of his allocated matches.
Conway Julie managed a very impressive 3rd place finish on the day!
In the final play-off match, Jayden took a 1-0 lead by the end of the first half, with Pedro equalising within the final 2 minutes of the 2nd half in what turned out to be an evenly contested and tense match-up. In the end penalty shots was required and Jayden triumphed by 3-1 shots over Pedro! In Pretoria we have been employing the "VAR" system for some time now - and Pedro's 4th shot was carefully scrutinised (slomo replay after replay after replay) to eventually make the correct call, where Jayden's 'keeper tipped the ball onto the inside of the upright without crossing the line to bounce back into play! This tiumph marks Jayden's 18th WASPA title to date!

Austin de Gama

In the Promotion Section some tightly contested matches unfolded and when Austin Da Gama beat Shaquille Barman by 2-0 in Round 2, it was clear that the 2017 winner (Shaquille) was about to relinquish his title! A clear sign of progression for Austin - as he ended bottom of the standings during the same event a year ago!
A special mention regarding the debutant Joycelle Tellie, who displayed very impressive touches on the tables all day - enough to earn him a well deserved 2nd place finish!

This event brings the curtain down for 2018 as far as PFC's club events are concerned. The next event = PFC's hosting of the 2018 SA Championships on Saturday 24th November 2018.

As always, a big thank you to all who attended to make the day a great success.
Finally….a special note of thanks to all the Pretoria players for your continued support during 2018!

The PFC website & facebook page will be updated shortly with photo's & news content at :
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PFC-SA/519566284755728

(report by Julian vd Merwe)

Warcoing Ducks tournament - November 2018

11 players attended the tournament organized by the "Warcoing Ducks" on Friday. Geoffrey Marain had no problem to win his 91th WASPA title after he won his four group games. Stéphane Lambert was a deserved runner-up with three wins while Michaël Dupret managed to finish on the podium. It was another good evening with players from different levels but the weaker players gained experience and had a good time.

Final standings:
1. Geoffrey Marain (AS Hennuyer)
2. Stéphane Lambert (Yokohama)
3. Michaël Dupret (MT Tournai)
4. Matthias Averlant (Templeuve)
5. Vincent Coppenolle (Templeuve)
6. Eric Caillaux (Templeuve)
7. Olivier Bodelle (Templeuve)
8. Arthur Clique (Templeuve)
9. Benjamin Marain (Warcoing)
10. Abdurahman Fahad (Templeuve)
11. Islam Belahcen (Templeuve)

More wins for Rodgers and Stewart

There was some more Subbuteo action last week-end in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

After Derry Cuty TFC organized their Anniversary Cup ealier this month, Donegal also had a tournament on Saturday. Unfortunately only three players attended as bad weather was to blame for another few players not being in attendance. Brendan Rodgers won the group format while Caoimhe Rodgers was runner-up and Brian Mc Corkell took the third place.

Players in the Ulster Subbuteo Championship

Finally, on Sunday Round 2 of the Ulster Subbuteo Championship took place in the premises of Sporting Club 18. Simon Stewart hosted an impressive and enjoyable event with 10 players taking part. Players were divided in two groups of five but the winners of each group later failed to qualify for the final as Barry Spence lost to Simon Stewart (0-1) while Mark McCrossan defeated Kenny Beggs on shots. In the final, Simon Stewart took the best on Mark McCrossan (3-0) to take the trophy and the lead of the Ulster Subbuteo Championship. Derry's Martinog Bradley won the Plate tournament after beating Lawrence Watson on shots in the final.

Cape Town Open 2018

This past Sunday saw the 5th edition of the Cape Town Open. This year’s event saw one of the smaller fields to date (9 players), but definitely the most competitive. All three previous winners were present, including German visitor Sven Schilling from Subbuteo St. Pauli, and current South African champ Clifford Graaff from the Johannesburg Eagles Club.

Special mention should also be made of Nick van den Berg, a Dutch visitor and the only novice to take part. He had a wonderful time even though he didn’t manage to score too many goals, and has promised both to look up some players / clubs on his return to Holland, and also to come back and play in South Africa.

Group A proved to be a very tight affair, with it all coming down to the last two games to decide who would progress to the next round.

The toughest game in Group B was undoubtedly the one between Wayne and John, with the former just failing to equalise by hitting the post in the dying seconds, and the latter collapsing exhausted into a chair at the buzzer.

John had done enough however to force his way into the semi-finals along with the three previous winners, Sven, Clifford and Clinton. Clifford beat Clinton on penalties after a tense 1-1 draw, and Sven beat John 2-0. The final was a very close affair, with much enthusiastic spectator banter. Sven finally took it by the only goal, giving him his second CT Open title.

A special word of thanks once again to Lee from the Conference centre at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, for the wonderful venue.