A week has passed since the Australian Grand Prix, and while it wasn’t the biggest we have held, it certainly had a great vibe.
It was a tough event in some regards, with the heat across both days being especially draining, and some of the best players in Australia thrown in together with Singapore’s Vikas Chandiramani, and our cousins from across the ditch in New Zealand.
As Adrian Elmer said elsewhere on the web, the World Ranking system and the Aussies in it, threw up some interesting clashes.

A huge thanks to all those in the LOC who helped out: Adrian Elmer and his fantastic design skills, school-teacher voice and head referee duties with Eliot; Adrian & Katelyn Grunbach, ably helped by Johnny Ball and Jonty Brener to decorate the venue as best we could; Eliot and Jonty taking the lead with table set-up, again helped by whoever was free; the Hipfingerz and Sydney guys for being there to assist (special thanks to Tony for his coffee machine!!)

A special mention to Adrian G who sourced sponsorship from ASICS for vouchers for the winners of the three individual categories. A huge thanks to ASICS.

We also had fantastic support from Sydney FC who provided a voucher for Sydney FC home match — and despite our best efforts, Adrian Elmer declined the award, and it was given to the Vagabonds Hipsters who played in the team event — Geoff Sirmai, Greg Werner, Louie Dettre and Jonny Ball. Lucky they’re all Sydney fans.

Another award was made by the LOC to the youngest player who stayed the course and played across both days: Tim Phokos, who was given the Futbol Cult voucher. Many thanks to Anthony Siokos for his donation.

One of the unheralded (on the weekend) stars was Louie, who put in another huge effort to run the streaming, despite some glitches here and there because of the vagaries of the internet. The lure of the green pitch was too much and he played on Sunday. Thanks to Geoff, Benji and Tony for assisting with commentary in the latter phase of Saturday.

And where would we be without Paul Mercer who worked like a trojan to fix some issues with the results spreadsheet, which let us run the tournament.
The action on the table was very dramatic.
Peter Thomas claimed back to back AGP titles, but was pushed all the way in the semifinal by clubmate Benji Batten, and was taken to extra time in the final by Rob Green before scoring a dramatic golden goal.
Each group had its own dramatic scores. In Group One, young Tim Phokos caused a major upset by beating Nick Brill 1-0, but was unlucky not to progress because of goal difference. Nick then went on to make the semi finals.
In Group 2, Frank Cozzarin got the wins that mattered despite a 6-0 loss to Eliot Kennedy, and moved to the Round of 16.
Group 3 saw Kostas Barbaris come back from a long hiatus to also get the points to make the next phase, while in Group 4, Adrian Connolly overcame Adrian Grunbach to move on.
Greg Werner benefitted from regular game play to make it out of Group 5, while Adrian Elmer upset the form book by topping group 6 after a 2-0 win against Daniel Lombard.  In Group 7, Steve Dettre also surprised seeded player Fabrizio Coco with a 2-1 win.
In Group 8, Benji started well with a 2-0 win against Rob Green, but both ended up qualifying for the Rd of 16.
In the women’s event, Beth Eveleigh stamped her authority with a 4-0 win against debutante Katherine Patten, while Imojjen Elmer kept pace with her, the title only being decided on goal difference to Beth.

In the U16 event, Katelyn showed the benefits of regular matches at the Falcons to take the crown.
In the Open knock out rounds, the two surprises were the elimination of Eliot Kennedy by Rob Green, and Nick Brill shrugging off his slow start to the day by beating Steve Dettre in extra time.
In the quarterfinals, Benji beat Vikas and Nick kept powering on with a win against Luke Radziminski.

Green looked to be hitting his straps with a 4-0 win against Nick in the semis, whole Peter had a real fight against Benji before coming out 3-2 winner.

In the final, Peter came back from being 0-1 at the break, to equalise and then take the title with a golden goal in extra time.

Benji Batten claimed the first FISTF event staged in Australia for two years when he edged out  Tony Credentino in a tight Sydney Internatonal Open final 2-0 on shots after a scoreless draw.

Benji Batten receives his winners medal

COVID has played havoc with the Australian scene over the last two years, and though a range of local WASPA events have kept activity alive, the ultimate aim was to get FISTF action happening again.
At one stage there were 28 entries in the Open, but COVID struck that down to 24, and then 21 on the day due to some late COVID withdrawals. Six players contested the U16 event and 3 women, with four in the teams event.

It also meant interstate contestants were limited to 2, with Melbourne’s Benji Batten and Nathan Urbaniak making the trek north.

Adrian Elmer (left) with Melbourne’s Nathan Urbaniak

All four Sydney clubs were involved in the organising, with the venue being the home of the Northern Falcons – the Willoughby Park Bowling Club.

Having a great area, and more importantly not having to move the boards anywhere, was great boost. It was all hands on deck on Friday for the set-up, and the Sydney club provided all the sanitising options, and Western Sydney Subbuteo’s Adrian Elmer lending his peerless design skills to enhance the presentation.

A welcome dinner on Friday and dinners on Saturday and Sunday kept the community feel strong.

A major surprise was the No.1 ranking of Torben Pfister, the result of inactivity in Australia, but he topped his group. Groups 2 and 3 featured the biggest struggles to qualify, with Adrian Grunbach having the wood over Adrian Elmer in Group 2 and Tony Credentino beating Paul Magee.

Steve Dettre and Steve Diasinos (Big Steve and Little Steve) continued their rivalry, with Steve Di pushing hard in the first half, before Steve De found his rhythm to run out winner.
In the Junior event, Daniel Sirmai and Gabriel Lombardi stamped their authority on the group early, but Catherine Palamara kept in touch, ahead of Taylor Lombardi and Dimitri Barbaris. In a delightful surprise, debutante Katelyn Grunbach made the semis, and scored against Daniel Sirmai before losing 4-1. Daniel beat Gabriel 2-1 in the final.

In the women’s event, Catherine Palamara beat Imojjen 1-0, with all three women players offering each other fantastic support and encouragement.

In the knockout phase of the Open, the barrages provided a couple of surprises. After playing so well in the group, Steve Dettre’s form deserted him against Tony Credentino who snatched a 1-0 win with a shot from an incredible angle. Then Johnny Ball – an infrequent visitor to Falcons’ nights – outperformed Geoff Sirmai, setting himself up for the match of the tournament, the quarterfinal against Benji.

Johnny Ball (Northern Falcions) and Geoff Sirmai (Hipfingerz)

Adrian Grunbach caused a boilover by beating clubmate Torben 2-1, while Tony Credentino ousted Eliot Kennedy 3-0 on shots after a 2-2 draw in their quarterfinal. And while Daniele Lombardi stormed to a 4-0 in his match against clubmate Kostas Barbaris, in the last qf, it went down to the wire.

Card and measuring kits produced by Canada Flicks

Johnny Ball shocked Benji with an opening goal, and while he pegged that back, Johnny again took the lead before it was all square at the break. In the second period, Benji steadied himself and with 5 minutes to go led 5-2, before Johnny launched an impressive comeback, replete with his own ‘crowd noise’. First he made it 5-3, then incredibly it was 5-4 with a minute to go, when Benji decided to employ the table football version of “taking the ball to the corner flag”. He saw out the clock, and afterwards Johnny proclaimed Benji’s tactics as “the greatest honour that anyone’s given me in Subbo — the fact that he was so concerned I might get an equaliser!”

Both semi finals ended 2-1, with Tony beating Adrian, and then Benji edging Daniele.
There were few real highlights in the final, with the title decided on shots, 2-0 to Benji.

Continuing the tradition of Australian table football, the ‘Plate’ event was held as a WASPA. Following the Group Stage of the Opens event, the 8 players who did not make it to the knockout phase and were able to stay around played a knockout WASPA tournament. The draw was open and unseeded.
Adrian Elmer (WSS) was drawn against Daniel Sirmai (HIP) and eased past him 3-0, While Paul Magee (WSS) had the same scoreline against his club mate, Imojjen Elmer (WSS). Nathan Unrbaniak (MTFC) was drawn against Franck Cozzarin (WSS) and came out victorious, 1-0. The final fixture produced the tightest game, with Greg Werner (HIP) playing out a 0-0 draw with Enzo Coco (STFC). Straight to shots and the tenseness continued, Greg finally coming out victorious 1-0 in the shootout.
The semi-final pitted Paul against Greg where the Western Sydney man dispatched his Eastern rival with ease. The other semi, though, was a completely different affair. Neither player was able to break the deadlock in a very tight match and so another shootout ensued. Adrian held his nerve to emerge a 2-0 victor, setting up a grand final showdown with team mate and friendly rival, Paul.
The final itself proved to be an entertaining and open game. Both players controlled at times until Adrian was able to take the lead midway through the first half. From here, though, Paul used every tactic in his unique Subbuteo armoury to control more and more of the game and pile the pressure on Adrian. Finally, with 40 seconds left on the clock, Paul finally got his equaliser. The game, however, didn’t go to shots. Remarkably, from the restart, Adrian broke down the left, charged into the shooting zone and chipped home a winner with just a handful of seconds to go. It was a dramatic finish to a great game worthy of a final.

Quarter Final
Adrian Elmer (WSS) 3 – 0 Daniel Sirmai (HIP)
Imojjen Elmer (WSS) 0 – 3 Paul Magee (WSS)
Nathan Unrbaniak (MTFC) 2 – 1 Franck Cozzarin (WSS)
Greg Werner (HIP) 0(1) – 0(0) Enzo Coco (STFC)

Semi Final
Adrian Elmer (WSS) 0(2) – 0(0) Nathan Urbaniak
Paul Magee (WSS) 4 – 0 Greg Werner (HIP)

Final
Paul Magee 1 – 2 Adrian Elmer

In the teams event, there were only three ‘official’ contestants, as neither Hipfingerz or Melbourne had a full compliment, and combined to play in the group.
The Falcons were surprised in their match against Hipfingerz/Melbourne, but recovered in the other games.
It came down to ‘points difference’ to decide the Falcons’ opponents in the final, with Sydney TFC edging out the players from the west.
In the final, the depth of the Falcons showed through, with a 3-0 win.

And to round out the day, an informal Doubles Event was staged, with Benji Batten and Nathan Urbaniak taking the Swiss format event.

A huge thanks to all the players and the Willoughby Park Bowling Club who delivered a fantastic venue.

2022 Open full results

SIO22 Teams Final scores

Random Pix

Johnny Ball defends against Eliot Kennedy

Streaming master screen

Daniele and Enzo

Frank and Gabriel

Steve v Daniele

Melbourne lads

Frank Corrazin (WSS)

Katelyn and Imojjen

Steve Diasinos

Paul Magee

Torben and Adrian

Essential: early morning coffee cart

Torben v Imojjen

Adrian Elmer, Eliot Kennedy, Neil Brener and Imojjen Elmer

Geoff Sirmai and Imojjen Elmer

Adrian Elmer and John Palamara

Basic carry case!

Hipfingerz: Geoff and Greg

Katelyn and Gabriel

Adrian and Benji

Players gathered from around Melbourne for the inaugural Jules Cup with all 3 Victorian clubs represented. Pre tournament favourite Luke Radziminski strode in with his Arsenal 2^nd kit team confident of victory in yet another WASPA favourite. Hoping to knock him off his Highbury strut were Paul Mercer and Kevin Grant from Northern Phoenix, Juliette Browne and Steve Wright from host club Western Flickers and junior Flickers Billy and Charlotte Wright.

By fluke of the draw, the title deciding game took place in Round 1 of the round-robin FAST 20 competition with Luke drawn to play Paul. In a close fought battle, Luke came out on top 2-1.

His next five games saw him dominate beating Charlotte 1-0, Kevin 2-1, Steve 1-0, Juliette 3-1 and Billy 4-2 to take an unassailable lead before his last round bye.

Despite his round 1 loss, Paul bounced back quickly beating Kevin 3-0, Steve 3-0, Billy 1-0, Charlotte 3-0 and Juliette 4-0. He ended the tournament in 2^nd place with 15 points but perhaps most impressively only conceded 2 goals, both to Luke, and scored 15 to be the tournaments highest scorer and least concede.

The remaining spots were extremely closely fought. Steve started brightly defeating Charlotte 1-0 and Juliette 3-0. Two losses to Luke and Paul dented his charge and his inability to score grew to haunt him.

Billy started well with a 0-0 draw with Kevin and a controversial 1-0 win over Juliette, followed by a loss to Paul. His goalkeeping was exceptional throughout the tournament.

Kevin started with the draw with Billy and back to back losses to Paul and Luke left him struggling with 1 point. Charlotte suffered consecutive 1-0 losses to her dad and Luke before securing her first point in a 0-0 with Juliette. Before her draw with Charlotte, Juliette suffered a 3-0 loss to Steve and a 1-0 loss to Billy. All to play for in the last three rounds.

Round 5 saw Kevin defeat Charlotte 2-1 where all 3 goals were scored in the last 3 minutes of play with Kevin coming back from 1-0 down to score the winner in the last 30 seconds. Juliette took a goal off Luke but succumbed 3-1 and Steve inexplicably picked up the ball in the penalty area to hand Billy a penalty, who then held on with some majestic goalkeeping for the rest of the game.

Billy on 7 points, Steve on 6, Kevin on 4, Charlotte and Juliette on 1. Round 6, Steve with the bye saw Juliette take a point with a 0-0 draw with Kevin, Billy lose to Luke 4-2 and Charlotte lose to Paul 3-0. Kevin had moved to 5 and Juliette 2.

Round 7 saw the Wright Siblings battle with Luke as referee to split the warring clans. Juliette succumbed 4-0 to Paul and with Steve and Kevin unable to break the deadlock, it was left to Billy to take a possible 3^rd spot if he could get a draw. However, he was left disappointed as his sister took a 2-0 lead and despite pulling a goal back, he could not get the draw he wanted.

Open winner Rob Green, Women’s winner Beth Eveleigh, and Junior winner Jonty Brener

January 18-20^th the 2019 Australian Grand Prix of Table Football was held in iconic Bondi, Sydney.  It was one of the largest events ever held in Asia with 38 entries in the Open category, 12 juniors, 6 women, and 6 club teams.

The festivities began on Friday 18^th January with the dinner and draw, supported by DT38 Australia guest speaker Donna Giuffre to raise awareness for testicular cancer in what promises to be an ongoing relationship between DT38 and the Australian Table Football Association (ATFA).

The draw saw 2 groups of 3 players and 8 of 4 in the Open; 3 groups of 4 in the juniors, and 2 groups of 3 in the women’s, and in the Club teams there was one group of 3 and one group of 4 – the fourth being “Barbarians” composed of players without sufficient club numbers.  The Barbarians were not eligible to progress beyond the group stage.

As always seems to be the case there was a “group of death” in each individual category:

• The juniors saw Hong Kong’s Nicholas Carabillo drawn with Charlotte Wright and Benjamin Ng in Group 1;
• The women’s’ draw saw Melbourne IO finalists Beth Eveleigh and Juliette Browne drawn together in Group 1; and
• In the Open event saw Raffaele Lombard drawn with 2018 World Cup representative Paul Mercer and Adrian Elmer.

Juniors

In the junior event, the first upset occurred when one of the favourites, Benjamin Ng, was an early casualty from the group of death.  Group 3 finished level, requiring a penalty shootout between Jonty Brener and Daniel Sirmai to separate the two at the top of the table, with Jonty prevailing.

In the Barrage, Northern Falcons’ Jonty Brener and Torben Pfister overcame Charlotte Wright and Daniel Sirmai to join Nicholas Carabillo and Gabriel Lombard in the semi-finals.

Both semi-finals were tight affairs, with Torben overcoming Nicholas 2-1 on shots after a pulsating 2-2 draw; whilst Jonty defeated Gabriel 1-0.

This made it an all-Northern Falcons final, demonstrating all the good work Hermann Kruse has done for the juniors of the club in recent years.  Hermann will be sorely missed when he departs Australia in a few months’ time.  In what would become the theme of the day, the finalists could not be separated in normal time.  Jonty scored the important golden goal in extra time to take the honours 2-1.

ATFA President Adrian Connolly presenting Jonty Brener with his Junior title

Women’s

In the women’s event, Juliette took out Group 1 on goal difference, while Charlotte Wright topped Group 2.  In the semi finals, Beth defeated Charlotte 1-0, while it took penalties to break the deadlock in the other semi-final with Juliette ultimately prevailing to set up a repeat of the final of the Melbourne IO in October 2018.

The final was a typically tight contest between Beth and Juliette.  This time Beth held her nerve in the shootout of a major final to take the Australia Grand Prix title 1-0 on shots. the first FISTF title for her club Northern Phoenix TFC.

Women’s AGP 2019 competitors

Open

In Group 1 the games went largely as expected, though Adrian Connolly pushed top seed and 2018 Asian Cup runner up from Hong Kong Antonio Carabillo all the way in a 2-1 loss to make Antonio earn his top spot.  This would be the last goal the Antonio would concede until the final.

Group 2 was the “group of death”.  After a narrow 1-0 win by Raffaele Lombard over Paul Mercer, Adrian Elmer knew he was up against it.   Raffaele then won 2-0 over Adrian with a very late second goal.  Adrian needed to defeat Paul in the final game and did so 2-0 to deservedly qualify from the group.   Unfortunately for Paul, his game may have started to suffer from the distraction of the great work he had done with the fixturing and driving the schedule for the event. Many thanks go to Paul for his great work over the weekend and leading up to it.

Group 3 saw Eliot Kennedy top the group with an impressive 13 goals without reply.  Canberra’s only entrant Nicholas Brill progressed to the barrage in second place.

Group 4 was another tough group.  4^th seed Benny Ng had drawn tournament dark horse Daniele Lombardi, fresh from his win in the inaugural Sydney Cup.  The clash of the two highest ranked players was one of the games of the tournament, finishing in an incredible 3-3 draw.  The group was then decided by goal difference, with Benny prevailing, to send Daniele into the barrage.

Group 5 saw Australian World Cup representative Fabrizio Coco top the group impressively with 14 goals from his 3 games.  Jonny Ball did well to take second place by defeating both Neil Brenner and Billy Wright, and also putting a goal past Fabrizio – one of the few players to do so over the weekend.

In Group 6, there was the only seeded player eliminate at this stage of the tournament.  Australian Veterans category World Cup representative Hugh Best found the going tough, finishing goalless on the bottom of the group.  Brisbane’s Giuseppe Tardiotta looked full of confidence, taking out the group comfortably with three wins and 13 goals.  Junior champion Jonty Brenner progressed with him in second place.

Group 7 had its first casualty of the event with Paul Magee who had to withdraw at the last minute due to the effects heat stroke from the scorching hot Sydney weather the previous day.  Thankfully he was in a group of 4 so as to not throw the draw into turmoil.

This presented a great opportunity for Kevin Grant to progress from his group again at a FISTF event and took this with both hands by comfortably defeating Louis Dettre.  Australian veterans category World Cup representative Rob Green, who had travelled all the way from Stockholm, Sweden to compete, topped the group without conceding to set up an exciting barrage clash with the winner of group 10 – Luke Radziminski.

Group 8 was a tight group from which the two Northern Falcons prevailed, Steve Dettre taking the group on goal difference from Adrian Grunbach thanks largely to his merciless 4-0 win over debutante Victoria Hampshire.

Group 9 went down to the wire.  Both Nicholas Carabillo and Tony Madiona went undefeated.  At half time of the final games, it was Tony and Geoff Sirmai who were set to progress.  However, a winner by Nicholas in the second half against Geoff saw him top the group, and sent Geoff out of the tournament despite just one narrow loss from his three group games.

Luke Radziminski started off Group 10 in ominous fashion with a 5-0 over Junior finalist Torben Pfister, and then an impressive 4-0 over Tony Credentino who rarely concedes many goals.  Tony, as expected, progressed in second place behind Luke in second place to enter the barrage.

The barrages saw comfortable victories for Nicholas Brill, Daniele Lombardi, and Tony Credentino over Kevin Grant, Adrian Grunbach, and Jonty Brenner, respectively.  The 4^th barrage game was much tighter.  Tony Madiona was 1-0 up over Jonny Ball in the last minute, before giving away possession in attack.  Jonny capitalized and scored an equalizer with 10 seconds to go.  Jonny then took the momentum into extra time, scoring the winner to progress.

In the round of 16, top seed Antonio Carabillo needed extra time to break the deadlock against Tony Credentino and take out a narrow 1-0 win.  Steve Dettre and Fabrizio Coco both won 3-0, against Nicholas Carabillo and Adrian Elmer respectively.  Raffaele Lombard easily defeated Jonny Ball 4-0 and Benny Ng had a comfortable 5-1 win over Canberra’s Nicholas Brill.  Benny’s club mate Adrian Connolly had a shock 2-1 win over Guiseppe to see them both progress to the quarter finals.  In what many saw as a potential final prior to the draw, Rob Green overcame Luke Radziminski 3-2, the only time Rob conceded multiple goals in a game over the entire weekend.

The quarter finals saw 3 Northern Falcons in four of the games.  Steve Dettre was the only casualty, going down 2-0 to Antonio Carabillo.  Rob Green narrowly defeated Raffaele Lombard 1-0 after Raffaele failed to capitalize on long periods of pressure.  Eliot Kennedy repeated his 3-1 scoreline from the Melbouren IO 2018 semi-final over Adrian Connolly, although this clash was much tighter than their previous encounter.  Adrian could consider himself unlucky to be 2-1 down at half time, with time running out at the end of the first half following an accidental handball by Eliot just outside the box from a shot by Adrian.  In the remaining quarter final Fabrizio Coco needed to come from behind to defeat Benny Ng with a golden goal in extra time to see the last of the Victorian contingent eliminated.

The semi-final draw saw Northern Falcons stalwarts of the game Rob Green and Eliot Kennedy clash. Rob Green’s defiant defence again proved the difference, with Rob taking out his second consecutive 1-0.  The other game saw equally strong defensive play.  After a goalless game between Fabrizio Coco and Antonio Carabillo, Antonio prevailed 1-0 in extra time to see the top seed progress into the final.

In a final fitting of an international quality event, the two players who had travelled the furthest to compete were pitted against each other – Hong Kong’s Antonio Carabillo and Australia’s Stockholm resident Rob Green.  Rob looked in control for much of the game but only held a narrow 1-0 lead.  In the dying moments, with possession at a corner, Rob chose to attack rather than maintain possession.  With possession conceded, and seconds remaining, this gave Antonio one last chance.  With an incredible long pass and shot on the run he equalized with the last flick of normal time to raise the roof on the venue!  But Rob Green regained his composure in extra time and avoided too much regret for this error by scoring the important golden goal and take the Australian Grand Prix 2019 Open title 2-1.

Open winner Rob Green proudly raising hit title.

Club Teams

Six teams entered the competition, Sydney TFC, Northern Pheonix TFC, two from Northern Falcons TFC and two from Western Flickers TFC.  To give other players more games, a team of “Barbarians” was also entered in to Group 2, but were not eligible to progress from the Group stage of this FISTF tournament.

In Sydney TFC topped Group 1 with wins over Northern Falcons B and Western Flickers B.  Norther Falcons B joined them after accounting for Western Flickers B.

In Group two, both Northern Falcons and Western Flickers accounted for Northern Phoenix.  Top place was decided with a narrow victory for the Northern Falcons over the vastly improved Western Flickers.

In the semi finals, the two seeds progressed.  Northern Falcons easily defeated their B team.  Whilst in the other semi, Sydney TFC was forced to throw on their “super sub” Raffaele Lombard to ensure they took out victory 2-1.  Again credit to Western Flickers’ improvement to be able to push this club much harder than they were able to at the Asian Cup in 2018.

The final was a local derby between Sydney TFC and Northern Falcons.  In a fitting finale, there were 2 wins apiece, meaning the result was determined by total goals scored, with Sydney TFC taking this out 5-4.

Club Team title winners Sydney TFC

2019-AGP-results-Individual

2019-AGP-tables-Individual

2019-AGP-results-Team

2019-AGP-tables-Team

In closing, a special thanks to all those involved in organizing and running the tournament, and the many players that travelled far and wide from all corners of Australia, and the world, to compete, referee, and generally have a great time at a fantastic event in a superb location.

2018 Melbourne IO Report

FISTF Women’s IO

The women’s event kicked off the weekends’ festivities.  It was contested between Beth Eveleigh of the Northern Pheonix and two Western Flickers TFC Members – Juliette Browne and Charlotte Wright.

A tightly contested round robin league ensued.  Beth drew both her games 0-0, meaning that Charlotte’s 1-0 win over Juliette in the final game decided the proceedings.  Charlotte took out her first FISTF title, with Beth runner up, and Juliette third.

Beth Eveleigh (runner up), Charlotte Wright (Champion) and Juliette Browne (3rd) with their awards from the Women’s FISTF IO

FISTF Junior U19 IO

The junior event was contested by 8 players in two groups of four.  The top two from each group progressing to the FISTF IO semi finals.

Benjamin Ng and top seed Gabriel Lombard early on showed they were the players to beat in this competition and took out their respective groups.  Charlotte Wright backed up her win in the Women’s event with a strong showing to progress from her group to the semi finals and defeating the vastly improved Aidan Deverell in the 3rd /4th playoff.

In the final, Gabriel played some quality Table Football but it was the killer instinct in front of goal that proved the difference with Benjamin Ng winning the Junior title 3-0.

Benjamin Ng receiving the Junior title from ATFA President Adrian Connolly

Junior U19 WASPA

The junior WASPA was held for all those eliminated from the FISTF event.  Second seed for the FISTF Junior competition, Billy Wright, overcame his disappointment at elimination from the main event to make the final but didn’t join his sister on the winners’ list, going down on penalties to promising debutant Liam Browne in the Junior WASPA final.

MTFC Open WASPA

The Melbourne IO Event also saw the debut of the Power Rankings to decide the outcome of a WASPA tournament.  The rules were:

– 1. Players not occupied referreeing the Junior, Women’s or Teams events on the Saturday were free to organise themselves games on the spare tables and record results.

– 2. The final standings were made using the new Power Rankings system given that not all players played a similar number of games, or games against players of the same standard.  Only results on the day counted.  A win over a player who had performed well on the day was worth more than a win against a player who was winless.  

– 3. All enquires on how Power Rankings are calculated should be directed to Richard Wilson.

– 4. For disputes on the outcome, see rule 3 !  

The completion was narrowly taken out by Raffaele Lombard from Eliot Kennedy and Giuseppe Tardiota in a good indicator of players to watch in the main Open event on Sunday.

FISTF Open IO

Sixteen players competed in the Melbourne IO.  Top seed Raffaele Lombard and third seed Eliot Kennedy would have been more pleased with the draw than second seed Benny Ng or fourth seed Steve Dettre, and it would turn out to be the case.

In Groups 1 and 3 Raffaele and Eliot cruised though their group games, with Eliot particularly impressed with three 5-0 victories.  Steve Wright progressed in second place in Group 1 on goal difference with his final round win over Juliette, whilst Kevin Grant went through in second place from Group 3 by defeating the 2018 Melbourne IO Junior Champion Benjamin Ng in the contest of that group.

Groups 2 and 4 were both wide open going into the final round of fixtures.  Second seed Benny Ng was at risk of not progressing after letting a 1-0 lead slip against Giuseppe Tardiota to go down 1-2.  Benny needed to defeat Luke Radziminski or hope his club mate Charlotte Wright could do him a favour in the final round of group games.  In the end Luke and Giuseppe got the results they needed to progress, with Luke topping the Group.  Prior to the event, several good judges saw Luke as a dark horse to take out the title and by topping this “Group of Death” this appeared to be the case.

Group 4, the “Presidential Group”, pitted fourth seed FISTF President Steve Dettre, ATFA and Western Flickers TFC President Adrian Connolly, Northern Pheonix President Christos Garagounis, and Adam Deverell.  Adrian put himself in a good position to progress with a 1-0 win over Adam thanks to a goal in the dying seconds of their first round clash, whilst Steve took the pole position expected of the seed going into the final round thanks to a big win over the luckless Adam. Christos drew his clashes with Steve and Adrian and as such needed a win in his final game against Adam, possibly by two goals, to progress.  However, it was not to be with Adam doing his club President Adrian a favour by defeating Christos.  The clash to decide the group winner was one of the games of the event.  Steve took the lead early, but Adrian responded immediately with a goal from the kick off possession and then scored a second goal soon after to take a 2-1 lead.  However, with seconds remaining, Steve drew level with the final action of the first half to tie it up at 2-2.  The second half was much tighter. Ultimately a relentless sequence of corners by Steve Dettre creates the decisive opening for the third and winning goal that saw Steve take out the Group.

The quarter finals pitted Raffaele against Kevin; Eliot against Steve Wright, Steve Dettre against Giuseppe Tardiota, and Luke Radziminski against Adrian Connolly.

The first two games went comfortably I the in form seeds Raffaele and Eliot.  However, in the other games Giuseppe showed his improvement from his time in Italy to overcome Steve Dettre; whilst Adrian Connolly caused an upset by defeating Luke Radziminski 3-1.  This meant 2nd in Group 2 had eliminated 1st in Group 4, whilst 2nd in Group 4 had eliminated 1st in Group 2.  Given both Giuseppe and Adrian only progressed at all from their groups by virtue of results in their final group games this demonstrated how tightly contested this half of the draw was.

The semi finals therefore featured players from each of the three states competing – NSW, Queensland and Victoria.  Given Adrian’s Tasmanian origins and his decade living in WA it could be argued that the semis truly had a National feel. 

In the first semi final Raffaele extended his run to 5 games without conceding a goal to go through to the final with a 2-0 win.  Whilst in the other clash Eliot capitalised on some defensive blocking errors to take a commanding 3-0 half time.  In the second half Adrian became the first player to put one last Eliot’s keeper.  A gripping end could have been set up had Adrian taken a good chance with a minute to go, but a good save by Eliot saw him also comfortably progress to the final 3-1.

The final was therefore contest between two of the travelling contingent from NSW.  The high quality game was streamed live in high definition with the latest technology – timber, rubber bands and an iPhone!  Eliot took an early lead but the top seed Raffaele responded well to equalise and then take the lead. Eliot found the net a second time with a great finish prior to half time but unfortunately the goal was ruled out in what later found to be an error by the referee.  Eliot as always showed why he is such a respected player with the way he handled the decision.

The second half saw Eliot needing to chase the game and in the last minute he had a good chance to score but sent his shot narrowly wide.  Raffaele then attacked and scored a third goal in what would be the last action of the contest.

Adrian Connolly (3rd), Eliot Kennedy (runner up), Raffaele Lombard (Champion), Guiseppe Tardiota (3rd)

Club Team Champions – Western Flickers TFC B Team

WASPA Open

To ensure the WASPA was complete prior to the FISTF IO Final, the format was a straight knockout competition with 2x10min halves and penalties (no extra time).  There were 9 competitors in the WASPA Plate Event, with the previous days’ junior runner up Gabriel Lombard joining the 8 players eliminated from the FISTF Open event.  Gabriel played Charlotte Wright in the barrage.  After a scoreless draw Charlotte won 2-1 on penalties to move into the quarter finals.

In the quarter finals, Charlotte continued her impressive run of results by defeating Adam Deverell 2-1 on penalties.  This set up a semi final showdown with her brother Billy who progressed after Beth Eveleigh needed to forfeit due to illness.  Benny Ng accounted for Christos Garagounis to set up a clash with his son Benjamin in the other semi final after Benjamin defeated Juliette 1-0. 

In the battle of the Wrights, it was Billy that prevailed 2-1 on penalties after a scoreless draw.  In the other semi Benjamin continued his run of wins over his father to progress to the final 3-1.

The final saw two of the Western Flickers’ juniors battle it out for the WASPA Open win.  In the end the FISTF Junior IO winner,

Benjamin Ng, proved to strong for the WASPA Junior IO winner Billy Wright.

Thank you to all the travelling contingent from interstate who added so much to the atmosphere and the quality of play.  

A special thanks must also go out to all those involved in organising the event:

Juliette Brown for obtaining the venue

Steve Wright for managing the budget, registrations, payments.

Kevin Grant for all the hard work moving the boards to the site (the boards of which he of course has made himself!) as well as his ingenuous “camera stand” for the live stream.

Beth Eveleigh for again running the best raffle!  Great prizes and a great little fundraiser to help with costs to keep fees down.

Adam Deverell for the BBQ.

Benny Ng as tournament head referee.

The clubs and players that made their boards available 

NP TFC for the WASPA Plate Event.

MTFC for use of their umbrella for the WASPA on Saturday.

All players for stepping into their referee duties when asked, including the visiting Carl Young who walked in to watch at the wrong time when we were one short!

Paul Mercer for his great tournament template to record the results and run the event.

Richard Wilson for use of the Power 

And finally a pat on my own back for keeping you all on track to finish 10mins prior to my schedule on both days, and somehow not losing any of the competition match balls!  Just don’t mention my ability to count to four in the final ?

Adrian Connolly

ATFA President

SUBBUTEO PERTH & JURONG CENTRAL SINGAPORE WASPA TOURNAMENT May 2018.

Yet again for the 3rd year running we welcomed our mercurial Singaporean friend Irwan Iskandar for a night of WASPA flicking at Good Games in Morley on a cool drizzly Wednesday evening. In the round of games to determine final league placings before finals Ron Byrne took on Irwan Iskandar but couldnt hold him off and after a vaillant effort the Perth Evertonian lost out 2-0 in the end as the pressure mounted. Chris Thorn got off to a bad start in his game against Ross McNulty and was 4-0 down at the HT interval, the Wiley former club president and club founder was much improved in the second half though and got a goal back with minutes left to go and was basically much more solid and resilient in the whole of second half to his credit. Next up was the much anticipated clash and derby between the two Singaporeans in Marc Ryan and Irwan, we expected a tight game but Marc ran away with a 5-0 win making him yet again the favorite for this tournament as he has been for every Perth tournament played so far and with an unbeaten record in his 6mths or so at Subbuteo Perth to defend. Marc Ryan took on Rockey Ronny(Ron Bryne) and yet again was defenceless as Marc went on to hit him for 6 without reply but again not a bad result given the quality of Subbuteo he dishes out for fun. Chris Thorn played Irwan Iskandar and the Singaporean proved to difficult to handle rasping in 3 stunning strikes to leave the Morangup boy with much food for thought. Hugh Best was next up and after a routine 3 nil defeat to the imperious Marc Ryan he took on Ross McNulty on the dodgy pitch of slant(as we called it) and after breaking away through the middle approaching HT Hughey poked home what proved to be his first win in nearly 3yrs against his friend and arch rival, again McNulty was quick to hug and congratulate his team mate and the onlooking referee Chris Thorn lauded the moment for what is was although Hughey to this day is still insistent that pitch was awful, but like I said both players are disadvantaged generally so no excuses on my part whatsoever in what was beginning to turn into a very interesting night results wise. Due to the pitch problems we had and our inability to fix up the problems we only had the one pitch so we were forced into 8 fixtures being classified as draws as the night wore on so final standings before finals read:

..P. W. D. L. F. A. PTS.

1/Marc Ryan. 5. 3. 3. 0. 16. 2. 11
2/Irwan. 5. 2. 2. 1. 8. 8. 8
3/McNulty. 5. 1. 3. 1. 6. 4. 6
4/Best. 5. 1 3. 1 4. 6. 4
4/Thorne. 5. 0. 3. 2. 3. 9. 3
5/Byrne. 5. 0. 3. 2. 2. 10. 3

SEMI FINALS:

Marc Ryan took on Hugh Best in the first Semi Final and yet again produced a masterclass as he ran Best ragged with relentless incision and at half time took in a 3-0 lead, Best gathers himself in the second half and had a few breaks of his own but Marc stepped up and converted two more goals to send a clear message to the other waiting Semi finalists in the following game. McNulty took on Iskandar and theres never been any shortage of goals between these two as they simply do not park the bus when they meet they go toe for toe and blow for blow, after a good start from Iskandar McNulty began to ease into the game an created a few chances but back came Iskandar who fashioned a few half chances himself before heading into the break at 0-0. The second half again was tit for tat but ultimately midway through a quick break caught Iskander with barely any defensive numbers and a shot low clipped in off the right hand post and put McNulty in form control. Iskandar waged a desperate attempt to salvage a draw and poured forward in numbers but McNulty held firm to reach the final.

FINAL:

Marc Ryan started well and clipped an unstoppable shot off the underside of the crossbar and back onto the other post and although clearly making all the initial running McNulty began to find a few breaks of his own and midway through a slick dash down the left involving 3 players led to a missflick defensive block from Ryan that allowed McNulty to crash home off the post a lead nobody could really see coming. Ryan began to react naturally and again went close on 2 more occasions before the half time bleep saved McNulty from going in all square. As the second began it was much of the same McNulty defending deep and concentration levels to the extreme needed. As Ryan became more desperate and Mcnultys Tcha Keeper repelled shot after shot there was optimism for McNulty as he broke quickly on 2 more occasions and one chance rebounded back off the post, as the final whistle drew near Ryan threw everything but simply could not breach Mcnultys rearguard and a 1-0 unlikely first win and defeat was dished out to our Singaporean Perth based brother Marc Ryan in what turned out to be a rare tournament in which every player lost a game.

FINAL STANDINGS:

1/Ross McNulty
2/Marc Ryan
3/Irwan Iskandar
4/Hugh Best
5/Chris Thorn
6/Ron Byrne

Sydney Satellite Report
29.04.2018

Report written by Luke Radziminski from the Melbourne Table Football Club:

3am is not your typical wake-up time to travel to a Table Football tournament. But so it was for this tournament, where I undertook the unorthodox journey of pulling a one day trip to and from Sydney to play in the FISTF Satellite in Leichhardt.

4 hours of sleep and functioning for the entire day may be my new record. Sleep deprived and worried I might develop some sort of sleep-onset insomnia through a vicious reconfiguration of my body clock, I managed to drag myself into the car and begin the trip to the Sydney which involved three car legs and a 6:45 am flight.

By 9:30, all of the mornings travels were quickly forgotten as play commenced on the extremepitches at the Associazione Napoletana in Leichhardt. The Open category consisted of 20 entrants- a record for an Australian Satellite event, which included travelling players from Melbourne (2), Perth (1), Canberra (2) and Singapore (1). In addition 5 Juniors contested the U19 Event.

Play underway in Leichhardt

Open Category

Commiserations to Benji who was runner up in the final after narrowly scraping through first place in his group and having to go head to head with the likes of Jonty Brener and Fabrizio Coco in the knockout stage. His match against Fabrizio was a fierce battle where blood was literally shed (albeit just a minor finger cut from Benji). A goal from Benji in the 1st minute of the game was enough as he progressed with a 1-0 win.

Eliot Kennedy of the Northern Flacons came out as the victor after being placed in a ‘group of death’ and battled through the quarters and semis against the likes of Vikas (Singapore) and Raffaele of Sydney TFC. The final against Benji was a tight affair with the scored locked at 1-1 at the break, however two clinical finishes in the second half saw Eliot win his first ever FISTF tournament.

The Open Finalists

U19 Category

Gabriel Lombardi of Sydney TFC took out the junior title defeating Jonas Hahn 1-0 in the final in sudden death extra-time. Gabriel won all four of his group games and held his nerve in the tense final to win his first FISTF title.

Gabriel takes on Jonas in the U19 Tournament

Consolation WASPA Tournament

The Consolation WASPA tournament was designed for those players who did not make it out of the group stage. Even though I had not lost a game in the group stage, literally pulling off a 2010 New Zealand result by drawing all the games, including one against the eventual winner, I finished in third place which sent me to the WASPA tournament. I found myself up against Oliver Ollnow, a junior player of the Northern Falcons in the final. But to my surprise he employed a unique defensive play style and was well disciplined between each flick and decision, which threw me off completely as I have not come across his style of tactics before. Thus, I forced myself to exercise quick-fire shots through the gaps of his defensive line to score two goals as chances were rare. Oliver managed to pull one back on the quick counter but could not find a second goal and I managed to take a 2-1 victory.

The winners of all three categories with tournament organisers Fabrizio and Tony

Credit for the tournament organisation goes to Fabrizio Coco, Tony Credentino and the Sydney Table Football Club for organising the venue and running the fixtures throughout the day and of course the exceptional Neapolitan Hospitality provided.

We look forward to seeing you all at our final FISTF event for season 2017-18, the Perth International Open to be hosted on July 28-19, 2018. Check out the Facebook event here:  www.facebook.com/events/233484734059485/