All-Ireland championships this week-end

The All-Ireland Championships will take place on Sunday 15th September 2013 at 9.30am in Celbridge Mill. The Irish Circuit has already been won by Mark Farrell but Kenny Beggs will be hoping to defend his title of All-Ireland Champion. Organizers have confirmed it will be the very first "national cup" under WASPA banner. Full details can be seen on www.nitfa.org.uk

Winners of the FISTF World Cup

Congratulations to the winners of the FISTF World Cup held in Madrid this week-end.

Individual champions

Open: Alberto Mateos (Spain)
Veterans: Massimo Bolognino (Italy)
U19: Luigi Di Vito (Italy)
U15: Claudio Panebianco (Italy)
U12: Claudio La Torre (Italy)
Ladies: Delphine Dieudonné (Belgium)

Teams winners

Open: Italy
Veterans: Italy
U19: Italy
U15: Italy
U12: Italy
Ladies: Belgium (unofficial, only 2 nations taking part)

News from Ontario

After a fantastic season with 27 tournaments held in Canada, the first events of the year in the country will be held in the next few days. Calgary had already announced a tournament for September 15. Now the guys from Hamilton have confirmed they will have an event on September 14. Interested players can contact Peter Sexton at peter.sexton@ymail.com

Peter has also officially become the WASPA contact for Ontario.

More events and activities in Arabona

The italian club of ASD Arabona Subbuteo Table Soccer Brasilia has just announced the calendar of events of the new season. There will be several tournaments in different cities of the area. Interested players can contact Fabrizio Fedele at arabonasubbuteo@gmail.com

The calendar:
September 22: meeting in Manoppello
October 27: meeting in Pescara
November 10: location to be decided
December 14-15: 3° Open Extreme Works Cup Manoppello - FISCT

There will be a table football school in Arabona Manoppello every wednesday from 8.00 pm in both "Subbuteo" and "Table football" versions. Meetings will also be organized every friday evening from 6.00 pm at "la chiesa del Mare" in Pescara.

Email: arabonasubbuteo@gmail.com
Website: www.arabonasubbuteo.jimdo.com

Diederik Boyen wins the first WASPA tournament of SC Flanders

14 players attended the very first WASPA tournament organized by SC Flanders in Hofstade-Zemst (Belgium). The event was played under swiss system with everyone playing four games. Diederik Boyen was the winner of the event with 4 wins in the pocket. Jos Ceulemans (picture) ended at the second place of the event with 9 points and a better goal difference than Peter Pollaert and Frank Lannoy. There will be WASPA tournaments every first monday of the month in Hofstade-Zemst this season (from September till June).

The tournament ranking:
1 Diederik Boyen (BEL/-) 12 pts - GA: 7
2 Jos Ceulemans (BEL/zur) 9 pts - GA: 10
3 Peter Pollaert (BEL/fla) 9 pts - GA: 5
4 Frank Lannoy (BEL/tem) 9 pts - GA: 5
5 Stephane Lambert (BEL/kei) 5 pts - GA: 2
6 Rudi De Smet (BEL/leu) 5 pts - GA: 0
7 Vincent Guyaux (BEL/fla) 5 pts - GA: -1
8 Filip Van Hulle (BEL/fla) 4 pts - GA: 1
9 Bart Van de Vliet (BEL/fla) 4 pts - GA: -1
10 Johan Lourdon (BEL/fla) 4 pts - GA: -4
11 Danny De Greef (BEL/fla) 4 pts - GA: -4
12 Eddy Beernaert (BEL/fla) 4 pts - GA: -5
13 Bert Feyens (BEL/fla) 2 pts - GA: -6
14 Steven De Greveleer (BEL/fla) 1 pts - GA: -9

Agenda of the WASPA Lazio League 2013-2014

The club of SS Lazio has set up the dates of the WASPA Lazio League 2013/2014. Details (in english and in italian) can be found on the webpage http://www.laziotfc.com/?q=node/2571

The dates are as follows:
Tuesday September 24
Tuesday October 29
Wednesday November 27
Wednesday January 29
Wednesday February 26
Wednesday April 30
Wednesday May 28
Wednesday June 25

For more details, you can contact Stefano Tagliaferri at stefano@laziotfc.com

Josef Camilleri wins the 200th WASPA tournament

24 players attended the WASPA tournament held in Attard (Malta). It was already the 200th regional tournament since the creation of WASPA and players from the clubs of Attard and Bormla were present in numbers to fight for the "Brendon Borg Cup". After the first round, the top 16 players qualified for the last 16 round but there were no surprises before the quarter-finals. The Bormla players dominated the event to put four players in the semi-finals. Josef Camilleri and Mauro Camilleri qualified for the final and Josef won the final on shots after a great final (2-2). the game for the third place also ended on shots and George Ebejer beat Alex Grima. Special thanks for Joseph M. Debono for organizing the event and Congratulations to the Bormla players.

Action in the hall

The final

The final for the third place

Mauro Camilleri: finalist

Josef Camilleri gets his trophy

Josef Camilleri the tournament winner

Ups and downs of the WASPA season

There is much to learn from the subbuteo season and there is much to say about how WASPA can be positive for the development of the game. Some nations definately took advantage of the WASPA circuit to grow.

CANADA has definately been the nation with the most amazing development over the last 12 months. The country had not had any tournament for years but 27 tournaments in 5 different cities(Calgary, Hamilton, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) have been organized under WASPA banner and 48 different players are ranked. Hopefully the development will continue next season and of Canada is ready to host a tournament of the FISTF circuit in the future, it will be a great honor for WASPA to have contributed to reach the next level.

AUSTRALIA also anaged to have tournaments again. Five tournaments were held in Penrith (near Sydney) and two events were held in Melbourne. There are also contacts in a few different places (Perth, Brisbane). With the relaunch of Subbuteo over there, there will be some possible new players and clubs. Hopefully more events will take place next season.

SINGAPORE is continueing their development. They now have more small events, which is very positive for the game. With the local distributor of Subbuteo for South-Eastern Asia, there will hopeflly be some more players in the country but also in MALAYSIA and possibly BRUNEI. WASPA had a few contacts in Malaysia but it's difficult to organize things over there.

The UNITED STATES have had a difficult time last year but it seems the ASA is now back on the right track with more local events, some new players and clubs and a great national championship. WASPA was very proud to have tournaments in Michigan, California, Delaware, Maryland, Florida, Colorado, Connecticut and South Carolina.

We can certainly not forget ITALY. They are the number 1 nation in the world of subbuteo but this season, many clubs decided to have WASPA tournaments. There were events in Rome first but since December, many cities joined the movement to organize a total of 39 events (including 7 with the old ETF rules). This is simply fantastic.

ENGLAND has had a huge development in the lest 8 months with events held in differents cities (London, Manchester, Thornaby, Lincoln...) and with certainly many more events to come soon.

CYPRUS has also trusted the WASPA circuit with 11 tournaments over the year. The Famagusta players had many good event but they also continue to host FISTF tournaments. Well done! Hopefully there will be developments this year, maybe with the creation of a new club in Nicosia.

Congratulations to SOUTH AFRICA. After Johannesburg, Pretoria is now also on the map. There are some good developments over there.

BELGIUM has had tournaments in Templeuve and Jambes and there will be events in Hofstade-Zemst and Velaine next season so the interest for WASPA is growing there.

MALTA is still on of the strong nations with events held byt the clubs of Attard and Bormla. It is also good to see some top players attending their events.

IRELAND and NORTHERN IRELAND had their first tournaments under WASPA banner this year. It was good to see them in action. Donegal Subbuteo Club in Ireland will also host their first events next season.

It was good also to have some tournaments in CHILE, FINLAND, GERMANY and WALES.

SPAIN had a few small events in the Barcelona area.

JAPAN, HONG KONG and DENMARK have not hosted any tournament this season but hopefully they will be back in the circuit soon. With a bit of luck WASPA will have their first events in SCOTLAND, SWITZERLAND, NORWAY, PORTUGAL, GREECE, the NETHERLANDS,... next season.

Thanks to WASPA, we have had some new nationalities in the ranking: ZIMBABWE, PORTUGAL, AUSTRIA, FRANCE, GREECE, SWITZERLAND, PAKISTAN, JAMAICA, SCOTLAND, BOLIVIA and... the ISLE OF MAN. We even had a player from SWEDEN winning a tournament in CHILE. Well done!

Thanks for everyone who made things happen. Please keep in mind WASPA is a totally free circuit with no tax to pay and easy rules. You only need 3 players to have a tournament and different sets of rules can be used (FISTF rules, advanced rules, ETF rules, Finnish rules).

We had 177 tournaments in total this season. Hopefully we can reach the magic number of 200 next season.

Any tournament request can be sent by e-mail at vincent.Cop@rsca.com

Another success for Brian Daley

Brian Daley won a field of 8 in the league meeting for Manchester TFC, which was counted as a WASPA "promotional event".

Final table:
1. Brian Daley
2. Steve Clarke
3. Russ Harker
4. Martin Blanchard
5. Greg Sammons
6. Danny Lilley
7. Craig Pardoe
8. Connor Bowden

Brain Daley gets his prize from Danny Lilley

WASPA monthly report of August 2013

Hello everyone,

the monthly report of the WASPA circuit can be found at this address: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4_PpphlADgVeDFLdUZ6S25DQTQ

a) Events in August

In August 10 tournaments were played under WASPA banner, which is very good for the summer period. There were 4 tournaments in England, 2 in Canada, 1 in Belgium, Singapore, Cyprus and South Africa. Steve Bennett became the first Scot to win a WASPA tournament. Tan Kok Wee won his first tournament in Singapore (he won in Hong Kong last year). Clifford Graaff won again in South Africa and there were some big names among the winners in England: Brian Daley and Chris Thomas. Well done to Canada for having organized 27 events this season!

To be noted some details of the last tournament in South Africa are sill missing and will be included in the next report.

b) Rankings

Geoffrey Marain (Belgium) is still on top of the ranking but Peter Sexton (Canada) is now very close of the first place. Canada has extended the lead in the ranking of nations while Belgium is back on the podium. 833 players from 32 nations are ranked.

c) Season report

This season is now over and all I can say is that the development has been awesome. In the first 16 months of existance, we had 35 regional tournaments and 1 tournaments with the ETF rules. In the last 12 months we had 164 regional tournaments, 8 tournaments with the ETF rules, 3 promotional tournaments and 1 tournament with advanced rules. At the end of August 2012, we had 220 ranked players from 18 countries. It means the number of involved players was multiplied by 3,78. Will we do more in the next 12 months?

d) Finnish rules

As we have tournaments with FISTF, ETF and advanced rules, there was no reason to refuse to have tournaments with Finnish rules. From now on it's possible but the Finnish association will send us a translation of the rules in english soon.

To be noted in September there will be 2 events with the Advanced rules in Donegal (Ireland) and Worcester (England). Both clubs will be hosting their first tournament under WASPA banner. Welcome!

e) WASPA and FISTF

WASPA is developping more than expected but I still believe it does not make shadow to FISTF. WASPA is concentrating on local events and doesn't have the same philosophy. For this reason, we can not accept the behavior of the FISTF president who is continuously putting pressure on players and organizers to stop any kind of colaboration with WASPA. Our game is too small to divide the community. WASPA players will never be forbidden to play WASPA tournaments. for the same reason, we should in no case any kind of pressure or any kind of blackmail from the FISTF president, in particular since the nations present at the FISTF AGM in Issy-les-Moulineaux on February 2013 confirmed that WASPA can only bring something positive for the game. We believe both circuit can continue their development by keeping their difference and attracting players with different sources of motivation.

f) Useful links

Here are a few links to check when you have time:

the WASPA blog: http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com
the WASPA map: http://goo.gl/maps/MP4gu
the WASPA Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/127530464069377/?fref=ts
the WASPA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WASPA-World-Amateur-Subbuteo-Players-Association/231789816834700
the independant table football forum: http://tablefootball.friendhood.net/

To add tournaments or to send results, please use this e-mail address: vincent.cop@rsca.com

g) Help needed for interviews

REMINDER:
For the future, we will try to have more interviews on the blog. If you are interested to be interviewed or if you want to interview one of your friends, you cans end a picture to vincent.cop@rsca.com and answer the following 5 questions:
- can you introduce yourself as a player? When did you start playing?
- why do you like subbuteo table football?
- what are your greatest achivements in the game?
- If you had to improve something in table football tournaments, what would it be?
- What are your thoughts about WASPA? Why do you like (or dislike) it?

h) WASPA is waiting your feedback

Any idea on how to improve WASPA is more than welcome. A new season is going to start and we are looking for ideas to get more players involved, more nations taking part and more clubs organizing events. Your ideas to improve things can be sent by e-mail to vincent.cop@rsca.com

i) If some of your friends want to receive the monthly report by e-mail, they can drop a line to vincent.cop@rsca.com to be added in the mailing list

Have a great month!

Vincent Coppenolle