Daniel Scheen wins Subbuteo party in Templeuve

The group picture

This week-end Belgium was the center of the Subbuteo world as players from many different countries were attending the FISTF Major of Frameries. On friday evening, the Templeuve United club had decided to host their monthly tournament in their premises to give the opportunity to some foreign players to spend a good moment and practice before the FISTF event.

England's Brian Butterworth

Italy's Lucio Canicchio ans Scotland's Steve Bennett

Finally 28 players from 5 different nations and 11 different clubs were present and there was no other option to play under Swiss system. The first two sessions were played as a draw so that players from the same club could not meet and serious things started from session three. After three games, Daniel Scheen, Geoffrey Marain, Pascal Scheen, Lucio Canicchio (who defeated Scotland's Steve Bennett in session 3), Jean-François Balard and Vittorio De Pascale were tied with 9 points and some big games took place.

The WASPA chiefs together in a tournament: Jos Ceulemans, Geoffrey Marain, Steve Bennett

Daniel Scheen trashed WASPA number 1 Geoffrey Marain while Pascal Scheen and Lucio Canicchio drew (3-3). The last session was therefore interesting as many things could happen and four players had still a chance to win the event. The decisive game between Daniel Scheen and Italy's Vittorio de Pascale was close with a half-time draw (1-1) but Daniel Scheen was really on fire to win the game 4-2 and therefore win the tournament in his first ever WASPA appearance! Well done!

Serge Leroy from Puylaurens, France

As the event was successful, it's more than likely there will be something similar next year before the Major but this time the event will be played in a larger hall.

Top 4 of the evening: Vittorio de Pascale, Eric Threis, Daniel Scheen, Lucio Canicchio

Final ranking of the evening
1. Daniel Scheen, BEL/TFC Wiener Neustadt
2. Lucio Canicchio, ITA/SC Fiamme Azzurre
3. Eric Threis, BEL/SC Stembert
4. Vittorio De Pascale, ITA/Flickers Milano
5. Pascal Scheen, BEL/SC Stembert
6. Steve Bennett, SCO/Dundee United TFC
7. Jean-François Balard, FRA/CFT Puylaurens
8. Colin Tarry, ENG/London & Essex United
9. Gabriele Silveri, ITA/SC Fiamme Azzurre
10. Jos Ceulemans, BEL/SC Stembert
11. Geoffrey Marain, BEL/SC Eugies
12. Serge Leroy, FRA/CFT Puylaurens
13. Ludovic Beauvais, FRA/CFT Puylaurens
14. Noé Scheen, BEL/TFC Wiener Neustadt
15. Brian Butterworth, ENG/London & Essex United
16. Renald Deloose, BEL/Templeuve United
17. Jason Delattre, BEL/Templeuve United
18. Matthias Averlant, BEL/Templeuve United
19. Rob Conway, SCO/Dundee United TFC
20. Andy Beskaby, SCO/Dundee United TFC
21. Vincent Coppenolle, BEL/Templeuve United
22. Rudi Peterschinigg, ITA/London & Essex United
23. Elliott Bellefontaine, ENG/London & Essex United
24. Dave Baxter, SCO/Dundee United TFC
25. Craig Thom, SCO/Dundee United TFC
26. Benjamin Marain, BEL/SC Warcoing Ducks
27. Steve Jamotte, BEL/Standard SC Liège
28. Olivier Bodelle, FRA/Templeuve United

First win for Vikas Chandiramani

Six players participated in a short tournament that was held at the Singapore Sports Hub Library on Sunday afternoon. They were randomly drawn into two groups with the top two qualifying for the semi-finals.

Group A consisted of Tan Kok Wee, Vikas Chandiramani and Nic Tan while Group B consisted of Rizal Taib, Amin Anis and Chihiro Takao. Vikas Chandiramani qualified convincingly from Group A with a 1-1 draw against Kok Wee and 3-1 victory over Nic. Nic qualified as the runner-up of Group A after a 2-1 win over Kok Wee.

In Group B, Rizal Taib similarly qualified as the winner of Group B convincingly with 3-0 and 2-1 victories over Chihiro and Amin respectively. Amin qualified as the runner-up of Group B after winning 1-0 against Chihiro.

In the semi-finals, Vikas continued his fine form with a 3-0 win over Amin while Nic managed a close 1-0 win over Rizal Taib. Hence, the final came down to a rematch of the earlier group game. Nic took a lead early in the second half with a fortunate shot that deflected off the crossbar and then the back of the goalkeeper before trickling in. Vikas upped the pressure and managed the equaliser minutes later squeezing a shot past the near post. With seconds left in the game, Vikas captured his first WASPA title squeezing in another near post shot and securing a 2-1 victory. Congratulations, Vikas!

Final ranking of the evening
1. Vikas K. Chandiramani (Jurong Central SC)
2. Nic Tan (Jurong Central SC)
3. Mohd Rizal Taib (Eastern Ealias SC)
4. Mohd Amin Anis (Jurong Central SC)
5. Tan Kok Wee (Singapore Lions SC)
6. Chihiro Takao (Singapore Lions SC)

(Report by Nic Tan)

Cobra SC, a new club in the WASPA circuit

Cobra SC had their first WASPA tournament at Vyronas, Athens, Greece on March 8 with four players taking part in a lovely room with Subbuteo setup. The 4 new members in the WASPA family are Nikos Soldatos, Philippos Kantarakis, Kostas Sabatakos and Manolis Papadakis. The games they played in Old rules. Philippos Kantarakis finished as winner of the tournament!

4th WASPA title for Paul Andreas

Paul O'Donovan, Paul Andreas and Rudi Peterschinigg

Paul Andreas once again won the WASPA event of thursday night in Harrow (League round #6), 7 players took part to it including Paul O'Donovan Rossa who made the journey from USA and everyone played almost 6 games (a part Luca Martinelli which lost 3-0 the first round for being late... as usual) and Lee Fenton that had to leave earlier and lost 3-0 to Paul A.), anyway brilliant and fun evening thanks also to Gianpaolo Vitulano and Matthias Peterschinigg for making the effort.

Next Round is March 22! Get involved people!

Monthly report of the WASPA circuit - February 2015

Dear all, here is the monthly report of the WASPA circuit.

EXCEL file (rankings)
PDF file (statistics, results)

A good turnout at the latest Singapore tournament

This month we broke some records as we had a total of 30 tournaments and we now have 1517 ranked players from 38 different nations, including one from Turkey. Among the big facts of the month, we can say that:
- we had the very first tournament in Cezch Republic. The event was held during the FISTF Open of Prague, we had 16 entries from 7 nations and a winner from... Australia!
- some isolated nations continue to do a great work of promotion of the game. We had tournaments in Finland, Hungary, Indonesia, South Africa (in 2 different cities), Singapore, Australia (in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane), Switzerland and Malta.
- there were three events in Greece. Besides the usual event of the Flaming FLickers, the new club in Veroia held their first tournament and there was also a WASPA tournament during the FISTF Open of Athens.
- a funny fact in the ranking: the top 3 players of the Puylaurens club (France) share the 103th place in the ranking. All of them have played the same number of tournaments (4) since the beginning of the season.
- Belgium (4 events), Italy (3), Scotland (2) and England (2) are still the most active organizers along with Australia.

Action in Indonesia

A nice venue for the Melbourne players

There are already a few events in the calendar for March. It's not too late to add more events.

This Friday, the monthly tournament of the Templeuve United club (Belgium) will be very special with a good field of international players. As the FISTF Major of Frameries is taking place on Saturday and Sunday, players from England, Scotland, Italy and France will meet on Friday evening and there will be a "battle of the chiefs" between the three top ranked players in the WASPA circuit: Geoffrey Marain, Steve Bennett and Jos Ceulemans. For sure it will be a very special event!

What are our hopes for the future? We hope to get more new places to run tournaments, to get more involved players from more clubs and more nations. It would be fantastic to have Denmark, Norway, Brazil, Argentina, Gibraltar,... in the circuit.

Ladies in action in Switzerland

WASPA is trying to become stronger but we will need ideas of everyone to keep on growing.

Once again, I can say we are very happy to work together in a very positive way with FISTF. Thanks a million times to Mr Alan Collins, the FISTF President, who has understood that WASPA and FISTF are not rival associations and that both bodies should work together for the good of the game.

Keep in mind for any request about the WASPA circuit and for sending results, you must use the following e-mail address: vincent.cop@rsca.com

WASPA tournament in greece during the FISTF Open of Athens with the WASPA banner in the hall

Please note the blog is updated as often as possible at http://waspa-circuit.blogspot.com

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

Have a great day and keep on flicking!

Vincent Coppenolle

Robert Green wins in Prague

This saturday the Czech Republic made a great come back in the FISTF circuit with and International Open organized in Prague. Organizers had also decided to give the WASPA status to the consolation tournament and 16 players from 7 nations took part. The final was very international between Australia's Robert Green and Austria's Markus Ziergoi. Finally Green took the honors after defeating Ziergoi (2-1). Semi-finalists were Hans Ruf (Germany) and Martin Bellefontaine (England).

Great subbuteo day in Switzerland

Despite two of their players signed for TSC Blak Crose Roma last summer, the club of SC Anfield Hoppers Zürinch is still active in Switzerland and organized another WASPA tournament this saturday in Urfdorf. There were seven players taking part and among them, there was a newcomer, Pasquale Stirparo.

This time Thomas Baumeler took the honors, beating Trisha Baumeler in the final. To be noted that Sarah Bernhardsgrütter finished for the first time in the last 4. Congratulations to all.

A nice win for Rudy Hesty in Singapore

This friday 14 players were present for the monthly tournament of Jurong Central Subbuteo Club in Singapore. The 2nd WASPA Jurong league was a special occasion. Why was it special? 1st was an event in tribute to one of our sponsors (Tchaaaa4) who have supported equipments for the new and younger players in the club and our community. 2nd was having players outside the club participating, players namely Erza Aripin, Benard Lim and his son Isaac Lim. And 3rd the event games will be incooperated in Singapore TFAS ranking points. Mohamed Musa Mohamed Bolkiah, Lim Yew Seng andLim Ding Heng played their first tournament ever.

14 players participated in the event; with top ranked players chosen based on Singapore ranking system. The group games and quarter finals did not provide any suprises as all top ranked players qualify comfortably. The 1st semis proved to be the game of the season with Bernard & Vikas trying to outscore each but the battle ended in a 3-3 draw; with the latter qualifying in the sudden death shoot-out. The 2nd semis between Anas & Rudy was also thigh with Rudy managing to squeeze a goal in the last 10 seconds of the game.

The Final was between the on form Vikas and the consistent Rudy. The game started rather cagey with both were cautious in the attack. However after Rudy scored the 1st goal in the 2nd half the game opened up and both started attacking each other. The equalizer was a mimic of one of the early semis, with Vikas scoring the equalizer in the dying seconds. Extra time nearly settled the winner but the shot by Vikas hit the crossbar and the ball bounced out. The dreaded shoot-out was again the decided. The 1st two shots were saved by the respective players but Rudy managed to savage thru the shootout with the a solitary low shot which trickled in pass Vikas goalkeeper thus Rudy was crowned the champion of the event.

Even though the game ended after midnight, the players all left the place with smiles.

Congrats to all the players who participated and the club was particularly pleased to have another newcomer; Bolkiah playing in the event.

(Report by Rudy Hesty)

A second WASPA title for Julian van der Merwe

Saturday 28 February 2015, Pretoria, South Africa
After capturing the final event on the 2014 PFC calendar, the Copa del Clausura, Julian van der Merwe was once again victorious in the opening event on the 2015 PFC calendar, the Copa del Apertura. Overall a great event with a total of 16 goals scored over the 10 match-ups on the day ! With wins in their first matches, Jayden van der Merwe & Julian van der Merwe went top of the standings, but in Match 4, Julian knew he had to play well if he stood any chance of contesting for honours - and the result went Julian's way with the final score Julian (1)-(0) Jayden!
When Kegan van der Merwe beat Jayden by 1-0 in Match 7, the result meant an end to Jayden's challenge for honours. The win for Kegan at that point put him (Kegan) top of the standings with 5 points!
Match 8 ended Chessray Jooste (0)-(3) Julian, and the result saw Julian go back to the top of the standings ! In Match 9, the winner would secure 3rd place on the day - and Jayden took 3rd place with a result of Jayden (3) - (1) Bevin Reed. Match 10 turned out to be the title decider, and Kegan needed to win to take the honours - and there were no surprises as Kegan done most of the attacking, and he actually wasted two good opportunities to take the lead, and even win the match ! The match ended Kegan (0) - (0) Julian, and the draw was enough for Julian to secure 1st place. That final result of (0)-(0) also ensured that both Kegan & Julian ended the day as undefeated, without either player conceding a goal !
Overall, a great day of spills and thrills as the 2015 PFC season finally got underway!

Final Standings
1st - Julian van der Merwe : 7 pnts
2nd - Kegan van der Merwe : 6 pnts
3rd - Jayden van der Merwe : 4 pnts
4th - Bevin Reed : 2 pnts
5th - Chessray Jooste : 1 pnt

Next event on the PFC calendar - the 2015 FOUNDER's CUP.

The PFC website & facebook page will be updated shortly with photo's & news content at :
http://pfctest.leaguerepublic.com/l/league/298369156.html
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PFC-SA/519566284755728

(Report by Julian van der Merwe)

Vaggelis Vavoulakis wins in Athens

12 players attended the monthly tournament of the Flaming Flickers held this sunday in Athens. The final was close between local players Vaggelis Vavoulakis and Lefteris Chatzakis of Atlas. Vavoulakis won (2-1) to claim the title.