Shaquille Barman on top of the Promotion league

Saturday 4th November 2017, Pretoria, South Africa

Pretoria Flickers Club launched their "Promotion League" on this Saturday - the division is aptly named as these players, if given enough development and practice, are the ones who will be "promoted" to play in our senior ranks one day. A very exciting day with 5 players taking part then unfolded. Although it was expected that goals would be hard to come by, the players never failed to deliver some really exciting matches. In the final match of the day, Fergus da Gama beat Imtiaz Ahmed by 1-0 - with the goal coming on the stroke of full time ! Fergus then tied Shaquille Barman on equal points and forced the event into a Final Play-Off match! The "final" ended 0-0 and had to be decided by way of sudden death penalty shots. In the end, the youngest participant on the day was able to clinch the shoot-out by 3-2. A fitting end to an exciting day of Subbuteo fun.

This was an initiative entirely driven by Jayden van der Merwe. His father Julian merely just co-ordinated the event. Local organizers hope Jayden keeps them motivated so that they can continue to develop their skills and keep them interested in this beautiful game of ours!

Final Standings:
1. Shaquille Barman
2. Fergus da Gama
3. Imtiaz Ahmed
4. Wesley Smith
5. Austin da Gama

Action in Finland

Last Saturday a WASPA tournament was held in Helsinki, Finland with six players taking part. Local players had the visit of Australia's Robert Green while George Papadopoulos from Greece was also taking part. Jani Mustonen and Jarkko Lindholm made a comeback after 4 or 5 years so it was great to see them back in action. Finnish players have hopes to play more in the future in the FISTF scene. In the end, the standings of the tournament were as follows:
1. George Papadopoulos (Flickers Milano)
2. Jani Mustonen
3. Jarkko Lindholm
4. Robert Green
5. Kari Hakkarainen
6. Petri Katila

Semi-finals:
Papadopoulos - Green 2-0
Mustonen - Lindholm 1-2

3rd place:
Mustonen - Green 0-0, shoot-out 1-2

Final:
Papadopoulos - Lindholm 2-0

Stéphane Lambert claims a second title

Logan Carette and Stéphane Lambert

Templeuve United players held their monthly tournament in a usual time on Thuersday to celebrate the visit of three representatives of SC Semois, a club based in the South of Belgium, approximately 200 kilometers away from Templeuve. The tournament was held in the afternoon, which means some players couldn't make it due to work commitments. Geoffrey marain couldn't make it this time so everybody expected a very open tournament. In the last sessions, the decisive game between Vincent Coppenolle (9 points) and Stéphane Lambert (7) was nice to watch and in the end, Lambert won the game (2-1) and the trophy. This is the Yokohama player's first WASPA trophy in Belgium, his second ever after winning in Singapore a few years ago. Logan Carette, who was back in action after a long hyatus, took the second place while Coppenolle was 3rd and Michaël Dupret 4th. The day ended with drinks and fries and everybody was glad after a great tournament. More action will be organized in the near future.

WASPA standings of October 2017

Dear all, here are the monthly standings of the WASPA circuit. There are 2 different files in this message:
- the season results (PDF);
- the rankings and statistics (Excel).

Action in Chile

We have added 34 tournaments in the records this month. We had 28 regional events, 2 tournaments with old rules and 4 promotional tournaments.

Several points to report:
- Australia had WASPA tournaments during the Sydney FISTF Open and the Altona FISTF Satellite. Thanks for their continuous support!
- Chile is back in action and we are glad to see events held in Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. Right now things are just starting over there but the future looks promising. We are very excited to see further developments in South America with other active groups in Argentina and hopefully Brazil will be back soon.
- Thanks to Gibraltar for hosting another WASPA event during their recent FISTF tournament.
- South Africa is still doing well. Besides the tournament in Cape Town, the Pretoria event had great numbers and the local club will have a development league for youngsters starting in November!
- Italy used to be the most active nation in the WASPA circuit. This month we had only 3 events but we really appreciate the support from the clubs of Macerata, Trieste and Firenze.
- In New Zealand, the Palmerston North players had the visit of Australia's Adrian Connolly and a good event was held there!
- There are continuous developments in the UK and this month we were extremely glad to see a good turnout in Lincoln (with the visit of 2 Italian players) and the first WASPA evening in Bristol. Well done!
- We have 1591 players (we are a bit down) from 48 different nations (new record) in the rankings. We are glad to have the very first representative from Ukraine!
- This season (since September 1) Greece (89 individual entries) is the most active nation while Australia is second (81), Belgium is third (67) while we have already had 529 individual entries in 2 month.

Great fun in Greece

We are very sad of what's happening at FISTF nowadays due to many internal problems. We really hope the people who are now in charge will do their best for the sport and we really hope the elections held in December will put the right people at the right place. We are sure the people who have asked for a General Meeting take the right decision and they deserve our full support. We also hope the new Board will collaborate seriously with the WASPA circuit in the future.

Well, that's all for now. Please remember you only need 3 players to register your tournament. Don't be scared to join. It's free and tournament requests can be sent by e-mail to vincent.cop@rsca.com

Players in Derry, Northern Ireland

WASPA is also looking for partners. If you know any company ready to support us (we don’t ask for money but we want some win-win agreements so that we can promote each other), don't hesitate to contact me at vincent.cop@rsca.com

 

Ideas to develop the WASPA circuit or to make things more attractive are always welcome. We stay at your disposal for more info.

Yours sincerely,

Vincent Coppenolle (vincent.cop@rsca.com)

Great subbuteo games in Rochefort and Bande

There were wome more events held in Belgium in october. Earlier this month JSC Rochefort had a small event with 8 players taking part. the tournament was held to prepare for the Europa Cup for clubs. Valéry Dejardin took the honors after defeating Nathan Dizier in the final. Kevin beckers and Arnaud Robillard reached the semis.

On October 31,  very small "promotional event" was held in Bande with Jean Grosdent winning all his games to lift the trophy.

Octoberfest in ... Greece!

The "Flaming Flickers" in Greece is one of the most active clubs in the WASPA circuit and this month, they also held a promotional event under the theme of "Octoberfest" so that all 14 players were competing under their favorite German team. The tournament was held in the local premises at X77 and organizers had prepared a great show with German sausages and beers to make something special. The winner was Alekos Apatzis thanks to a sudden death goal on the final against Nikos Liakopoulos. Congratulations to the winner and to all the participants for the great games.

Giuseppe Tardiota makes it again

Woody Point, 9am on October 28th.
32nd Brisbane Subbuteo WASPA Tournament

We started the day with ten competitors, thanks to a couple of fly ins from Sydney. Herman and his son Oliver flew up specially for the tournament, and both were to do very well.
Because of the numbers we had two groups of five, of which the top two from each would meet in the semi finals. Our two under 12’s Oliver and Wil were paired with Rik, Gus and Gerry.  The second group had Herman, Giuseppe, Gareth, Andrew R and Shane. Both groups looked tough, with no garuntees for anyone.

The first round saw Oliver storm home, scoring three in the last five minutes to win the U12 battle 3-0. Gerry started shakily against Gus, who capitalised with some fine goals and lost 5-0. Hermann started his away day with a 1-0 win over last months finalist Andrew whilst Gareth and Shane finished up 2-2. The two U12’s then faced serious opposition in Rik for Oliver and Dad for Wil. Dad won 4-1 and Rik won 2-1, and the shrewed Oliver picked up that Rik was playing with 12 men (we’ll be keeping a closer eye on Rik from now J ). Andrew got to winning ways beating Gareth 3-0 and a very close battle between Giuseppe and Hermann saw the Italian come out on top with a 2-1 win. Hermann had a penalty saved at the end of the first half, and saw a shot rebound out from the inside of the post.
Midway Gerry managed to a narrow 1-0 win over young Oliver, Hermann making up for his previous misses beat Shane 4-0 whilst Andrew and Giuseppe fought out a 0-0 draw.

The fourth round saw the big upset of the day, Gerry over turning Brisbanes #1 3-0. The other game in this group was a eye brow lifter too, Oliver drew 0-0 with last months winner Gus. Oliver’s defence play was really top notch.  Giuseppe narrowly beat Shane 3-2 and Hermann still on a rampage beat Gareth 4-0.

The last round in group 1 saw Rik play Gus with a loser heading out of the competition, Gerry topping the group with 9 points. Gus only needed a draw. 9 seconds into the game and Gus was 1-0 up after a quick attack and finish. Rik did get one back and pressed hard, but his normally deadly shooting didn’t turn up, the game finished 1-1 and was probably the first tournament in Brisbane where Rik missed the semis. Giuseppe secured his spot in the semis with a 4-0 win over Gareth, Andrew beat Shane 2-0 but it wasn’t enough for him to progress.

So Giuseppe and Gus lined up in the first semi, the only unbeaten players thus far, and Gerry faced our visitor Hermann.  Giuseppe playing in his penultimate Brisbane comp before moving back to Europe was determined to do well, and his determination payed off. Playing the better Subbuteo, he won 2-0 to seal his place in the final. The other semi also finished 2-0 to set up a rematch between Italy and Germany.

It was a very tense final, as they often are,  Giuseppe though making the breakthrough and scoring well. Hermann was not to be out done and roared back within 2 minutes to equalise. The first half though finished 2-1 to Giuseppe scoring another great goal just before the whistle. Hermann pushed hard but it was Giuseppe who got the next and last goal to win the final 3-1. Hermann hit the post at least twice in the second half, never giving up.

It was a great competition and great to have visitors from other clubs. Sadly our next competition is the last for  Giuseppe, but we are hoping to make a special occasion of it.

Great turnout of 11 in North Wales

London Road Subbuteo Club held "The Parrot Cup" in Drury this Sunday, October 29. it was a great day of play with 11 players taking part. It was geat to see new and returning faces in attendance. League groups of 6 and 5 were played with top two going into semi's and third place play for the plate. There were some great games and it was good to see Ruby (age 8) and Ollie (age 9) playing each other. Cayne Matthews beat Yani Kelly 2-0 in the plate final in a close game. Martin Blanchard beat Tom Burns 3-1 and Brian Daley beat Richard Stock 3-1 in the semi-finals. The final with Brian and Martin finished 0-0 with Brian winning with a golden goal in extr-time.
Huge thanks to Cayne Matthews for keeping thing running. Well done for the great job!

Nikolaos Papadogonas wins old rules tournament

Earlier this month 12 players from various clubs attended the "11th Greek old subbuteo WASPA tournament" organized by the Greek club of Flaming Flickers.

Old rules and equipment were used and the winner was Nikolaos Papadogonas (Pireas Lions) after a close final against "Flaming Flicker" Panos Panagiotides.

Congratulations to Nikos for the trophy and to all the participants for the good games!

Great games in New Zealand

From left to right: Rodrigo Cárdenas, Ignacio López, Adrian Connolly, David Pacheco. 

This saturday a small tournament was held in Palmerston North, New Zealand to celebrate the visit of Australia's Adrian Connolly. The event was some kind of "trans-Tasman sea tournament". Local players really enjoyed having Adrian with them. It was a great tournament played with great enthusiasm. NZ players would like to repeat this type of events in the future. Adrian Connolly finished on top of the group of 4 while Ignacio Lopez Campbell was runner-up, Rodrigo Cardenas was third and Mexico's David Pacheco took the fourth place.