First tournament in Lamézia (Italy)

This sunday a small tournament was played for the first time in Lamezia Terme (Italy). The turnout was small with three players taking part but it was nice to see some new names. Andrea Pagano won the group stage with Gianluca Pagano finishing second and Enrico Borrello third.

First title for Jeremy Boothman

The Lincoln Flickers organized another WASPA tournament on sunday with 5 players taking part in swiss formula. Jeremy Boothman won all his games to claim the trophy. John Bottomley was second, Richard Meddings third, John Devaney fourth and Ivor Morgan fifth. Congratulations to all the players involved.

From left to right: John Devaney, Richard Meddings, John Bottomley, Ivor Morgam and Jez Boothman

Justin Finch wins The 2013 Sliders Tour

England’s Justin Finch won stage 1.4 and secured The 2013 Sliders Tour Order of Merit. The final stage was at the home of Yorkshire Phoenix. Finch came against tough opposition but still managed to score and incredible 30 goals in five games!, Winning four and drawing one. The Results can be found here: http://subbuteoassociation.co.uk/members/organiser.cfm?id=59
The organizers would like to say THANK YOU to all the 40 players who played in the Tour. Congratulations Justin Finch!
Keep you eyes open for The 2014 Sliders Tour, Even Bigger and Better!

Here is the top 8 of the last stage of the Sliders Tour 2013
1. Justin Finch
2. Mark Farrell
3. Brian Daley
4. Matt Lampitt
5. David Russell
6. Mike Parnaby
7. Stuart Walsh
8. Trevor Schott

Brian Daley, Danny Lilley, Justin Finch and Mark Farrell

First title for Kostas Kalopsioditis

On saturday the Limassol tournament ended with a big surprise as Kostas Kalopsidiotis won his first WASPA title after he played really well and beat Giorgos Stylianou in the final. Stylianou, who is only 14 years old, surprisingly beat Giorgos Zangylos in the gorups stage but later proved to have a lack of experience and he couldn't play at the same level again in the final because of the stress. Vangelis Zorbis and Pambos Zorbis were the other semi-finalists.

16th title for Geoffrey Marain

The Templeuve tournament held on November 1 had a good turnout of 9 players. There were close games in every round but at the end there was no surprise as Geoffrey Marain won his 16th WASPA title, beating Vincent Guyaux (SC Flanders) in the final by a clear 6-1. Here is the final standing of the tournament:
1. Geoffrey Marain( SC Eugies)
2. Vincent Guyaux (SC Flanders)
3. Renald Deloose (Templeuve United) and Vincent Coppenolle (Templeuve United)
5. Hatim Elmajd (Templeuve United) and John Verfaillie (Templeuve United/SCU Cominoise)
7. Dany Timmerman (SC Auvelais)
8. Matthias Averlant (Templeuve United)
9. Laly Ramos (Templeuve United/SCU Cominoise)

The finalists

The last 4

The group picture

WASPA report of October 2013

Dear all,
here is the monthly report of the WASPA circuit. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PDF FILE

a) Events in October

We had 9 regional tournaments (the event in Limassol has been postponed to November 2), 2 tournaments with the old rules (both in Italy) and 2 promotional tournaments (in Italy and England).

Among the regional tournaments, it was the normal activity in Templeuve, Hamilton, Rome, Hofstade-Zemst, Manchester and Thornaby. The tournament in Grand Rapids, Michigan had a good field and an italian winner. Portugal had an impressive second tournament with 20 entries. Jyväskylä (Finland) made their debut in the WASPA circuit.

b) Rankings 

Geoffrey Marain (Belgium) is still on top of the ranking, Canada is leading in the ranking of nations. Portugal is close to enter the top 10. 929 players (+27) from 32 nations are ranked. Geoffrey Marain (Belgium) is the leader of the season ranking.

c) WASPA and FISTF

Any WASPA organizer interested to host a tournament with the double status (FISTF and WASPA) should contact me. Thanks for getting back to me :-)

We still hope the good relations between WASPA and FISTF will help to increase the number of WASPA events.

For the first time WASPA has been in touch with fans from... Burkina Faso!

d) Useful links

The WASPA blog has been improved with fresh new pages for the calendar of events ("forthcoming events"), the list of tournaments winners and a page about the philosophy of WASPA and the different types of events. Hope you like it!

Here are the 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 FISTF website: http://www.fistf.com
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

e) WASPA confirmed events

forgot the say you can check the already confirmed events from here now: http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.be/p/forthcoming-events.html

Feel free to drom a mail to vincent.cop@rsca.com to add more events :)

f) 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?

g) 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

h) 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

First trophy for Ivor Morgan

Five players attended the "promotional tournament" organized by the Lincoln Flickers on wednesday evening. The turnout was a bit disappointing but on the bright side the competition was won by one of the two newcomers. Ivor Morgan, who is almost 70 years old and used to run a club in Lincoln decades ago, was attending his first tournament since then. John Devaney was second, Michael Hardy third, Ian Johns fourth, Peter Warner fifth.

Simone Trivelli on top of the WASPA Lazio League

On October 29th, the second of the eight tournaments of the WASPA Lazio League 2013-14 was played in Rome (Italy). As usual the swiss system in four rounds was played with 11 players including rookies (first WASPA tournament) Massimiliano Lazzaretti and Alessandro Matrullo.

As always there were many close games and in the last round of games six players were still in competition to win: Simone Trivelli (9 points), Patrizio Lazzaretti, Paolo Barone, Gianmarco Del Brocco, Stefano Tagliaferri and Filippo Iacovacci (6 points).

The Swiss formula offered a thrilling last round of play: Gianmarco Del Brocco and Paul Barone beat respectively Iacovacci and Tagliaferri (3-1 final score in both games) , rising to 9 points and hooking Simone Trivelli, which however, drew (0-0) with Patrizio Lazzaretti and lonely reached 10 points, enough to win the tournament.

At the finish line, Trivelli is first, Paolo Barone and Gianmarco Del Brocco ex-aequo seconds (the two opponents bear the same ratio of 25 -> for the WASPA ranking Barone has a better goal-difference) and Patrizio Lazzaretti 4th.

Then come Stefano Tagliaferri, Claudio Paolino, Filippo Iacovacci, Gianluca Morelli, Sergio Sassi, Alexander Matrullo and Massimiliano Lazzaretti.

In General Classification remains in command Gianmarco Del Brocco (47), who shakes off Lazzaretti Patrick (43), reached second place by Simone Trivelli (43). Fourth place goes to Paul Barone (38), closely followed by Stefano Tagliaferri (36), with Claudio Paolino (26) that stands in sixth place, followed by Filippo Iacovacci (22) and then, gradually, from all the others.

(report with the help of Stefano Tagliaferri)

Monticelli and Cavallo are the winners of the two tournaments in Pescara

The club of Arabona held a tournament in Pescara (Italy) last sunday. There were two different events as two sets of rules were used during the day. The tournament with the old rules attracted six players and Gaetano Monticelli came on top of the group stage with 13 points while Pierpaolo Bucci had 12 points. Fabrizio Di Sipio was 3rd, Salvatore Rapino 4th, Giovanni Favetta 5th and Marco D’Alanno 6th.

The younger players played with the FISTF rules and the tournament was counted as a "promotional event". Maurizio Cavallo won the group of 4 while Lorenzo Chirileison was second, Emanuele Di Francesco third, Nicolò Di Francesco fourth.

Nuno Noronha wins in Oeiras

The second WASPA tournament of the season in Portugal took place last saturday in Oeiras with 20 players in the entry list. After the group stage (5 groups of 4), there were many close games between the final between Tiburones players Nuno Noronha and Ruben Português. This time Nuno won the sudden death to claim the title. Manuel Santos and Ricardo Pavão reached the semi-finals. Afonso Pereira won the consolation tournament.