Year end tournament in Singapore

Report by Jurong Central Subbuteo Club

The year end WASPA tournament was held on 30th Dec 2015 at Jurong Central SC club house. It attracted 22 various SG club players, where organisors decided to split players into 2 categories; Open & Under 16 event.

OPEN Format
The 15 adult players were drawn into 5 groups, consisting of 3 players, with only the top players from each group automatically qualify for the quarter finals together with the best 3 second place players following suit.

With no ranking system in place, the group draw saw the top ranked Singapore players drawn into the same group, notably Group B, which had Nic, Rudy and Tan Kok Wee while Group E had John Ho, Bernard Lim and Noor Haikal. While the other groups consist of mixture of experience and lots of enthusiasm with two adult players, Khairil and Salihin, making their WASPA tournament debut plus our overseas guest Benny Ng from Australian club, Melbourne TFC.
Group A - Michael Choong, Simon Ee &  Khairil
Group B - Nic, Kok Wee & Rudy
Group C - Ezan, Rizal Tayib & Yew Seng
Group D - Irwan, Benny (Melbourne SC) & Salihin
Group E - Bernard Lim, John Ho & Noor Haikal

U16s
The 7 youth players were drawn into 2 groups; with the experience players placed in Group A while Group B had the enthusiastic four.
U16 Group A - Isaac Lim, Bolkiah & Luke Lim
U16 Group B - Ding Heng, Wei Xuan, Dylan & Ming Liang

The champions

Open Category
The open format saw several favourite casualties notably Bernard Lim, Noor Haikal & Nic, being eliminated from the group stage. There wasn't any fairytale ending for the two debutantes, as both were also knocked out early and demoted to the plates event which Nic Tan eventually won.

The top 8 Open category are as follows:-
Michael vs Irwan
Benny vs Rizal Tayib
Rudy vs Simon
John Ho vs Tan Kok Wee

U16s 
The junior event saw Isaac topping his group with a 100% winning record while Ding Heng had to battle hard before earning the pole position in his group to earn a final berth.
Isaac won comfortably 3-0 in the final against Ding Heng to lift the U16 crown, while Luke Lim beat Dylan to grab the 3rd spot.

Open Category
Michael Choong had to pull out of the quarter finals due to personal matters hence Irwan jumped to the next stage to met Benny, who had to sweat it out against Rizal Tayib before qualifying to the semis together with Rudy and John Ho who won their games comfortably.
Benny impressive run continued after another 1-0 win against Irwan while Rudy hammered John Ho to progress to the final.

Finals
Rudy and Benny first encounter was full of excitement in attack & defence. Waves of attack by Rudy was frequently foiled by the brilliants of Benny keeper. However, 8 minutes before the end, Rudy managed to penetrate his opponent central defence before slotting in the decider winner. 1-0 it stayed and Rudy was declared the winner of the last tournament of the year.
Congrats to all the winners and thank you to all the players who supported the event. Happy New Year in advance to all flickers world round and may we have more fun & excitement in 2016.

A special award for Benny Ng

Final Standings 

(Open Cup category)
1st - Rudy (Jurong CSC)
2nd - Benny (Melbourne TFC)
3rd - John Ho (Lions SC)
4th - Irwan (Jurong CSC)
Plates winner
Nic Tan (Jurong CSC)

(U16s category)
1st - Isaac Lim (Lions SC)
2nd - Ding Heng (Jurong CSC)
3rd - Luke Lim (Lions SC)
4th - Dylan (Jurong CSC)

Trisha Baumeler does it again

This wednesday the Swiss club of Linth Sliders held a Christmas Cup in Eschenbach. The six players were divided in two groups and in the end, it was a "Baumeler final" with Trisha defeating her father Thomas to claim her 6th WASPA title. Peter Erb finished third. Thanks to Roman Bernhardsgrütter for making things happen.

First tournament in Thessaloniki

On December 19 the Thessaloniki Subbuteo fans organised their first WASPA tournament under WASPA banner. 10 players were taking part with two guests from other clubs. In the final, Serafim Koulosousas (Proteas Athens) was the winner after defeating local player Nikos Tsoukanaras. Thanassis Giaglis (Flaming Flickers) and Nikos Skordas were the semi-finalists. That was the first tournament in the city, hopefully the first of many more.

Vito Di Ruggiero wins in Auvelais

Runner-up Pol Serwy and winner Vito Di Ruggiero

This tuesday the second tournament of the "Etoile Sarthoise Val-de-Sambre" had a very good turnout of 12 in Auvelais. Players were divided into four groups (with no seeds) with then 2 more games for places 1 to 12 for every player. In the group of death, Vito Di Ruggiero (SC Charleroi) finished on top after beating Jerôme Heyvaert. Vito later beat Michaël Hallin (SC Temploux) in the semi and Pol Serwy (SC Eugies) in the final. Vincent Coppenolle (Templeuve United) was the other semi-finalist and later won the game for the third place. Vincent Guyaux (Bormla SC) won the games for places 5 to 8.

Vincent Coppenolle and Michaël Hallin

Vincent Guyaux and Dany Timerman

Fabrice Guyaux and André Boltz

Jerôme Heyvaert and Corentin Boltz

Alyssa Guyaux and Matthias Averlant

Christmas cup for Ugo Custo

This sunday the club of Catanzaro in Italy was holding a Christmas Cup, a tournament played in Swiss system with the old rules. 9 players were taking part and in the end Ugo Custo took the honors, winning with 10 points.

The final standings were as follows:

1. Ugo Custo
2. Andrea Pagano
3. Raffaele Gangale
4. Alessandro Corigliano
5. Vincenzo Manica
6. Salvatore Scalise
7. Paolo Talarico
8. Alfredo Priamo
9. Domenico Giglio

Rudy Hesty wins 2015 Xmas Cup

WASPA mini-tournament hed at Orchid COuntry Club, Singapore

The final tournament in the Singapore Table Football calendar with SG Ranking points took place on 27 December 2015 at the Orchid Country Club. The Xmas Cup was organized under the banner of SG Lions Table Football Club.

(L to R standing): Luke Lim, Isaac Lim, Benny Ng, Benjamin Ng, Nic Tan, Nicholas Carabillo, Antonio Carabillo, Den Mulia Yusni, Anas Rahamat, Noor Haikal

(L to R seating): Vikas Chandiramani, Tan Kok Wee, Rudy Hesty

The 12 players were allocated into 3 groups of 4 players each for the round-robin preliminary Group Stage. The top 2 finishers with the 2 best 3rd-placed finishers progressed to the Cup quarter-finals; while the remaining 4 players will then contest in the Bowl semi-finals.  Players who were knocked-out in the Cup quarter-finals then contested in the Plate semi-finals.

Group A consisted of Den, Anas, Haikal and Benny (from Melbourne TFC).  Group B consisted of Rudy, Vikas, Isaac and Benjamin (from Melbourne TFC).  Group C consisted of Bernard, Antonio, Nic and Luke.

Cup Winners (L-R): Den (Third), Rudy (Champion), Bernard (Runner-Up), Haikal (Fourth)

Bowl Winners (L-R): Luke (Third), Isaac (Champion), Nicholas (Fourth), Benny with son Benjamin (Runner-Up)

Plate Winners (L-R): Antonio (Fourth), Anas (Runner-Up), Vikas (Champion), Nic (Third)

Congratulations to all players!

(Report by Bernard Lim)

Francesco Fucci did it again in Florence

On December 3 the 4th stage of the challenge organized by the Italian club of North Florence was held with a good turnout of 8 players. After the group stage, Francesco Fucci proved to be the best player as he deafeated Alessandro Zampieri in the semi and Marcello Monti in the final. Marcello Monti and Maurizio Pugi share the first place of the challenge with 18 points while Francesco Fucci has 14 with just one tournament to be played in January.

Christmas Cup of the Warcoing Ducks

The players

This tuesday the "Warcoing Ducks" had to switch their venue to Templeuve to host their Christmas Cup. 8 players were present to play in Swiss system and five of them were juniors. in the end, Geoffrey marain was cleraly the best while Vincent Coppenolle was runner-up. Three players tied with 6 points for the thrid place but Corentin Boltz has a better goal difference to finish third while Matthias Averlant was fourth and André Boltz was fifth. The Templeuve tournament of December has been postponed to January.

WASPA events in Gillingham

Rob McCormick vs Kye Arnold

Two small 4 man events for the adults and juniors at the FISTF Satellite played WASPA knockouts to see who would win the trophies with the Satellite Plates as designated WASPA events.

The Adult WASPA tournament was won by Kye Arnold with a slender 1-0 win over Rob McCormick in the final, whilst Joshua Foreman grabbed a 5-1 final win over Jacob Silvester in the Junior Plate.

Well done to the finalists and the winners!

(Report by Terry Arnold)

First WASPA title for Arnaud Nullens

Last friday 14 players met in verviers to attend the Christmas tournament organized by SC Verviers-Herve. There were some old players coming back in action like SC Seraing's Cédric Gilles and a newcomer, Nicolas Vitolo. In the end, despite the presence of some representatives of Stembert, Black Devils and JSC Rochefort, it was all about local players with Philippe Roufosse playing Arnaud Nullens in the final. Nullens won the game on sudden death while Alex Torré and Jean-Michel Cuenca were the semi-finalists. Well done Arnaud!

Andy Boyer is Christmas Cup champion

Just before the final. From left to right it shows Jeremy Boothman (ref), Andrew Garbutt and Andy Boyer.

Last wednesday the Lincoln Flickers organized their Christmas tournament with a good turnout of 6. Andy Boyer took the honors. He defeated Andrew Garbutt in the final (2-1). John Devaney and Jeremy Boothman lost the semis. Michael Hardy and Andy Berry were the other players taking part.

The King of Pistoia is back!

Massimo Lapucci strikes again at the 4th round of Pistoia, with 3 wins and just one draw, no goal conceded. Only Alfredo Granato doesn't surrend to the leader but must stop his track versus the unpredictable Jerry "the anti-aesthetic" Morandi. Good return of Angelo Fornari aka "the Prophet", ended up at 3rd place. No goal scored for Michele Nesti. The Series will reprise in January 2016, on the last monday of the month.

(Report by Alfredo Granato)

Luca Pini on top in Firenze

Luca Pini, Davide Visani, Marco Bonciani, Emanuele Cattani and Riccardo Ferri

This monday evening the club of CS Firenze was glad to host another WASPA tournament with a very good turnout of 18. Luca Pini was the grand winner, defeating Marco Bonciani in the final (1-0). Davide Visani and Giammarco Riccioni were the losing-semi-finalists. Emanuele Cattani won the consolation final against Riccardo Ferri (2-0). Congratulations to all for another good evening of Subbuteo.

Rik Bland wins again in Brisbane

Numbers were down for this month’s WASPA tournament, due to the busy time of year, and other commitments, therefore only the bare minimum of 3 players were available to contest the trophy.
Rik Bland, Giuseppe Tardiota and Chris Scholes played a league format, playing home and away fixtures.

Chris Scholes playing only his second WASPA tournament played well, narrowly losing by a 2-1 scoreline in his first 2 matches, his second match against Giuseppe, he lost 4-2, and final game against Rik, he lost 4-1, but Chris showed that with a bit more practice, he could cause a few upsets, especially if he can cut out the crazy spare GK play. Chris showed he knows how to find the net with some great worked goals.

Ever present, club founders Giuseppe and Rik battled it out again, the first of the 2 matches went Rik’s way, with a sound 4-1 win. The second match Giuseppe required a 4 goal margin to take the trophy, he fought hard, and took the game 2-0 to avenge the earlier defeat, however goal difference was enough to see Rik’s new Cameroon team take the trophy for the second time in succession.

Chris Scholes 1-2 Giuseppe Tardiota
Chris Scholes 1-2 Rik Bland
Rik Bland 4-1 Giuseppe Tardiota
Giuseppe Tardiota 4-2 Chris Scholes
Rik Bland 4-1 Chris Scholes
Giuseppe Tardiota 2-0 Rik Bland

The next BSC tournament will be held at 9.00 am on Saturday, January 30, 2016. Woody Point Clubhouse.

(Report by Giuseppe Tardiota)

Erich Hinkelmann on top in Vienna

Last Friday the club or TFC Wien West was hosting another WASPA tournament in their premises. This time 10 players were present and there was another refugee from Afghanistan being introduced to the game. Farid Basir became the second player of his country to play a tournament. Erich Hinkelmann won his five games to win the trophy while David Busch was runner-up with 12 points. The final ranking of the evening was as follows:
1. Erich Hinkelmann (AUT/TFC Mattersburg)
2. David Busch (AUT/Master Sanremo)
3. Alfred Strommer (AUT/TFC Wien West)
4. Adam Kraus (AUT/TFC Wien West)
5. Marios Strommer (AUT/TFC Wien West)
6. Caspar Heinrich (AUT/TFC Wiener Neustadt)
7. Jonathan Nichtenberger (AUT/TFC Wien West)
8. Thomas Eppensteiner (AUT/TFK Niederösterreich)
9. Paul Rauchenschwandtner (AUT/TFC Wien West)
10. Farid Basir (AFG/TFC Wien West)

Three in a row for Daniel Cranston

Daniel Cranston
Holiday Silver champion

Dan Cranston of Maryland Subbuteo Club made it three Holiday Silver victories in a row on Dec.5 2015 at Patapsco Middle School in Ellicott City, MD. Dan navigated his way through a top quality field of 26 players in the Open Category. His first major hurdle was in a tight quarter final match with fellow club member Patrick Sheridan. Cranston would level the score at 1-1 in the last minute to take the match to overtime, where he would score a golden goal to move to the semi finals. Michael Tillman - a tough match up for Cranston - would be swept aside 4-2 as Cranston followed a typical pattern of building momentum as he progressed in the event. The final saw a match against Zach Walker of Colorado. Thirty minutes of regulation play did not produce a goal. In overtime, Cranston, who had been under siege, broke away to score a brilliant counter attacking goal to win the title.

In the veterans category, a nine player field came down to a final between Paul Eyes (Maryland) and Alex Batacchi (Tampa, FL). The match ended 0-0 after extra time. Eyes would win the shoot out 3-1.

In a non ASA/WASPA event 15 junior players played for the Patapsco Cup. Avery Klein defeated Vikas Reddy in the final.

Players on Sunday in the Shrine

On the Sunday play switched to The Shrine - Maryland Subbuteo Club’s home venue – with another Open event (field of 12 players) seeing Zach Walker exact some revenge over Cranston 3-0 in the final to win the Knockout Cup. During morning play, a two man team challenge event took place. Midwest Squared (Zach Walker and Peter Alegi) defeated Florida (Dario Passadore and Alex Batacchi) on shots after the match score ended 1-1. 41 players over the weekend, we look forward to seeing everyone next year for the 23rd playing of the event.

(Report by Paul Eyes)

Fourth stage of the Tayside circuit

Last sunday the Dundee United players played the fourth stage of their circuit. Six players were present and after the group stage, Gareth Christie was the leader with five wins. In the final, Gareth played Steve Bennett who finally took the honors thanks to a clear victory (2-0). Andy Baskaby was third, Dave Baxter fourth, Craig Thom fifth and Kevin Perkis sixth.

Monthly report of November 2015

Dear all,

Excel file with the November rankings
PDF file of the WASPA Golden Book

like every month, I have sent the WASPA golden book to the people who are in the WASPA mailing list (feel free to ask to be part of it) to give an idea of our activity over the last few weeks. In November 2015, we have had a lot of tournaments and this also means a lot of work to create files and statistics. We had 27 regional tournaments, 4 promotional tournaments (all of them in England) and 3 tournaments with the old rules (all of them in Australia). We are waiting results from a tournament played two weeks ago in Singapore. It will be added in the next ranking.

Action in Melbourne by the "Western Flickers"

We have had 51 players competing in WASPA tournament for the very first time and the big surprise this month was to welcome the first player from Afghanistan. Hussein Bakhshi is currently living in Austria and has been introduced to the game by the members of TFC Wien West. COngratulations for the nice efforts. For the first time we have 41 nations involved in the circuit and the ranking.

Youth in action in Tombelle, Italy

About the ranking, I must apologize for mistakes in the calculation of last month's overall ranking. I forgot to remove one colomn in the Excel file and therefore the ranking was calculated on the basis of 25 months instead of 24. Everything is back to normal but it explains why we had a new record of involved players in the end of October. We have now 1681 players in the ranking and I think this is fantastic.

A good tournament in Vienna, Austria

I am a bit worried about the future of the WASPA circuit because some nations give a huge support while some others seem to have a much reduced activity. I'm happy to see many tournaments played in Australia, Belgium, Singapore, Cyprus, England, Austria, Scotland, the US and South Africa. Some nations like Portugal and Canada haven't organized any WASPA tournament for a very long period and I don't know what we can do to change it. Some nations host tournaments only from times to times but it only reflects the real activity of the game in countries like Hungary, Switzerland, Ireland, Indonesia, Germany, Wales, the Netherlands,... and I'm fine with that. Italy has a huge potential but curiously there were only 2 regional tournaments in Italy in November (one of them was organized by Davide Lazzari with 16 new players). Some nations like France, Spain, Greece, Malta, Japan have a real potential to have more events but how can we convince organizers to host WASPA tournaments? Finally, how can we be more involved in nations such as Argentina, Brasil, Scandinavia (Finland, Norway, Denmark), Gibraltar while there are still a few players there? I just wonder what more WASPA can do to get people interested. We really want to become a "world game" but ho can we achieve that? Your ideas are welcome.

The Dalaware valley Open in the US

Well, back to the game, I can conclude that November was positive with the first tournament of the "Etoile Sarthoise Val-de-Sambre" in Belgium, action again in Indonesia after a break of a few months, a tournament in Swiss system with 20 players in Templeuve, bit action in Gillingham (England) with 5 tournaments being played in one week-end, the visit of Germany's Sven Schilling in Cape Town (later in the same month Justin Fich from England also met Cape Town's organizer Clinton Gahwiler), many great events in Australia, the first tournament of SC München 2014 in Germany,...

Flickers in Indonesia

WASPA would like to congratulate Dario Passadore for becoming the new President of the American Subbuteo Association. We are sure he will do a good job to have better connections between the ASA and both FISTF and WASPA.

Players at the Cape Town tournament in South Africa

Remember the circuit is yours so your ideas to improve the WASPA circuit are more than welcome. Don't hesitate to send your proposals to my e-mail address at vincent.cop@rsca.com

Don't hesitate to ask for WASPA status if you are hosting some events. Remember you only need three (3) players to have the WASPA status. Just send a tournament request to vincent.cop@rsca.com

Please note the blog is updated almost every day at http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com

The FISTF website is http://www.fistf.com

Have a good week and keep on flicking the plastic.
Yours in sport,

Vincent Coppenolle

A good evening of play at SC Flanders

Frank Lannoy, Geoffrey Marain and Jos Ceulemans

This monday evening 11 players met in Hofstade-Zemst for the monthly tournament of SC Flanders; This time only one French-speaking player made the trip to the Flemish club but Geoffrey Marain won the event after winning his four games. Jos Ceulemans was runner-up with 9 points while Frank Lannoy had 8. Johan Lourdon and Stéphane Lambert had 7 points. The ranking was continued as follows: 6. Eddy Beernaert (6), 7. Geert Leys (6), 8. Bert Feyens (6), 9. Danny De Greef (6), 10. Bart Van de Vliet (3), 11. Willy De Bandt (1).

Chris Thomas wins in Cardiff

Chris Thomas (left) and Colin Lewis

Last sunday the Cardiff Bluebirds club organized a tournament in Llanishen. Chris Thomas was the final winner, taking the honors after winning the final against Colin Lewis. David Lauder and Dave Samuel reached the semis while Gareth Thomas beat Darren Barnes in the Plate final.

Dave Pawsey wins the English national league

On November 14 and 15, the English Subbuteo Association ran a great week-end of subbuteo in Enderby. The winners were as follows:
Division 1 - Dave Pawsey
Division 2 - Martin Blanchard
Junior Division - Kye Arnold
Saturday Cup - Andy Boyer
Sunday League - Rob Ramsay

As decided with the organizers, the events also counted for the WASPA circuit. The Division 1 was a "regional" tournament, with the division 2 and the Junior section counted as B-events. The Saturday Cup and the Sunday League were promotional tournaments. Congratulations to the organizers and to the winners.

A few pictures of the tournament