oli ollnow | Subbuteo Australia

By Eliot Kennedy and Steve Dettre

Eliot:

Fabrizio Coco, Eliot Kennedy, Oli Ollnow, Hermann Kruse

It’s hard to know where to start in reporting on what was an amazing and, in some ways, overwhelming experience! Overall, it was a really great few days, with some impressive individual and team results, some disappointments and a few lessons learned. The Aussie team spirit was tremendous, and it was particularly lovely to see Hermann and Oli again, and to have great support from Fabrizio’s dad Vince throughout and, on the Sunday, Eliot’s wife Jutta.

The organisation by the Italian federation (FISCT) was in some ways brilliant, but in other ways could have been even better. The “room” was amazing (never seen 48 boards set up before with heaps of room around each board!), while the tables, boards and pitches (Astrobase) were very good. The pitches did slow down a little as the venue got warmer each day, but were consistent and of course the same for every player. A late morning start meant a very late finish on the Saturday…the Aussies bailed at around 7.00pm while the top flickers were still going. Just too tired. Getting to and from the venue was not easy either, but we managed in the end. All in all, though, well done FISCT!

WARM UP – Friday
We headed to the venue at around midday on Friday. As well as some flicking amongst ourselves, we managed to arrange international team friendlies with Gibraltar and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) on the Friday afternoon, which was both great in and of itself (our first internationals since the friendlies against Singapore in February 2020, and first against these two countries) and very good preparation for what was to come. Both matches were close, and were played without referees and in a really good spirit. After a narrow loss to Gibraltar, we managed a narrow win over the ROI – our first against European opposition since the 1994 World Cup versus Norway.

The full scores were as follows:

Australia v Republic of Ireland

AUSTRALIA (1) vs GIBRALTAR (2)
Eliot Kennedy 1 Joe Bonavia 1
Fabrizio Coco 1 Lawrence Alvarez 0
Hermann Kruse 1 Daniel Baldichino/Richard Berllaque 2
Oliver Ollnow 1 Joseph Sanchez 2

AUSTRALIA (2) vs REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (1)
Fabrizio Coco 3 Brandon Rodgers 0
Oliver Ollnow 3 Oisin Mac Eo 0
Eliot Kennedy 1 Gary Moore 1
Hermann Kruse 0 Andy Fitzpatrick 1

INDIVIDUAL EVENTS – Saturday
I can say that even at 60, and with many events behind me, I was still very nervous! But the Friday flicks had helped and once I got into it the nerves mainly faded. Unfortunately, we all tended to play our matches at the same time or had to referee when others were playing, so we did not get to watch each other much.

Leroy Justin v Fabrizio Coco

The results:
Open
Fabrizio
v Leroy Justin (BEL) 1-6
v Alberto Di Maggio (GRE) 0-6
v Bennet Kaspar (ENG) 2-4

Veterans
Eliot
v Stefan Sandner (AUT) 1-3
v Lazaros Papakonstantinou (GRE)0-3
v John Marshall (SCO) 5-0

Hermann
v Frank Stiller (GE) 1-7
v Cesare Santanicchia (ITA) 1-7
v Luis Abreau (POR) 0-6

U20
Oli
v Cristian Antùnez (ESP) 2-2
v Christos Hitas (GRE) 0-4
v Francesco Vezzuto (ITA) 0-1

Steve:
Some fun facts:
• For the second time at a world cup, Eliot won a match (1994: Miroslav Sulc (CZE) 2-1) and 2022 (John Marshall (SCO) 5-0), and in the process was the first Australian player to score more than 2 goals in a game in the FISTF era.
• He joins an elite group with Peter Thomas (2014, Rochefort) and Raffaele Lombard (2016 Framerie) [and himself in 1994] to win a match and thus not finish bottom of his group.
• Eliot’s win was our first since 2016.
• This was the first world cup since 2016 where all players scored at least one goal in their group.
• Oli was our first representative in an ‘Under 20’ to get a point since Will Johncock in 1994.
• His 2-2 draw matched that of Will, who drew 2-2 with Pavel Novak (CZE).
• The coach of the Italian youth team said after Oli’s narrow 1-0 loss to Vezzuto: “If he spends a month at my club, he becomes a top player in England!”

Eliot:
Some quick observations:
• Fab was drawn in one of the toughest groups, against three world class players. He did really well to score in two of his matches, and to push Kaspar Bennett to a 4-2 result (Kaspar drew 2-2 against Italian opposition in the team event on Sunday and is a top, top player on his day).
• My first match was critical. Stefan deserved to win but at 1-2 down, I managed to hit the post 3 times in the one shot…30 seconds later Stefan scored! But even with a draw, I would have gone out on goal difference. Happy to get a big win though, even though I should’ve scored more!
• Hermann, by his own admission, struggled to play his best, and to strike a balance between trying to be relaxed and trying to play hard. I think his (and Oli’s) lack of regular competition in Berlin makes it tougher for them. He had tough opponents though and did well to score in two of his matches.
• Oli acquitted himself really well in a tough group. Getting a point was well deserved.
• The standard of the top players was, as expected, unbelievably high. In particular, the speed with which players both attack and defend is amazing.
• Play goes so fast it is hard to tell, but I still think that there were lots of times when a defender had two flicks when they only should have had one (because the attacker had taken two flicks in very quick succession). I don’t recall it being pulled up even once.

TEAM EVENT – Sunday
Being drawn with Belgium (who made the final), England (very strong) and Northern Ireland, we had realistic expectations about qualifying, but did target the NI match as the one we wanted to win. We had Steve down as a sub for each match, but his FISTF Presidential and media duties unfortunately meant he was unable to flick in anger.

We played England first up. They were too strong for us, as expected. I had the pleasure (and misfortune!) to play Chris Thomas, Peter’s brother. What a great and fair player he is! My only regret was not scoring a consolation goal near the end, but truth be known my keeping kept the score down (as did Chris’s very nice decision not to go for goal when I missed a forcing flick with my spare keeper). And well done Fab and Oli at least scoring in their matches.

Full results were as follows:

Australia 0 England 4
Oliver Ollnow 1 Elliott Bellefontaine 5
Fabrizio Coco 1 Kaspar Bennet 5
Kruse Hermann 0 Darren Clark 5
Kennedy Eliot 0 Chris Thomas 4

Australia v Northern Ireland

Next up we had Northern Ireland, who had gone down 0-4 to Belgium. This was the one we wanted to win, and we came very close to doing so. We were up 2-0 at half time (with Fab and me leading), but NI did well to fight back and make it 2-2. We were well in front on goals overall, but unfortunately it still counted as a draw in a group match. In retrospect, we should have done more research on our opponents, as I think with a different match-up of players we would have won. But fair play Northern Ireland.

Full results were as follows:

Australia 2 Northern Ireland 2
Eliot Kennedy 4 Watson Lawrence 0
Fabrizio Coco 8 Adams Eoin 0
Hermann Kruse 1 Bradley Martinog 3
Oliver Ollnow 0 Stewart Simon 1

Next up were Belgium. Uh-oh!! They were pretty relaxed and I think took it easy on us, but were still way too good. The scores:

Belgium 4 Australia 0
Christophe Dheur 3 Oliver Ollnow 0
Bessim Golger 4 Hermann Kruse 0
Rémy Huynh 5 Eliot Kennedy 0
Florian Giaux 7 Fabrizio Coco 0

Northern Ireland managed to lose only 1-3 to England in the final round, with Simon Stewart having a fine 2-0 win over Bob Varney, meaning that they pipped us for third in the group. That was disappointing, but it was still a great day and we were very proud to fly the Aussie flag!

I stayed for the knockout rounds and witnessed some amazing and very close matches. The passion levels were high – sometimes too high for this Aussie – but most of the matches were played without too much controversy.
In sum, it was a brilliant few days and I hope to experience it again in 2024, rather than waiting 28 years for my next World Cup.

Steve:
Final observation:
• I was impressed by the spirit of the team, despite losses. All the guys responded admirably, shaking hands, and congratulating opponents. There was no petulance from any of our lads (that I saw!)

September means a couple of important things for Western Sydney Subbuteo, the beginning of the annual Spring League and the staging of Australia’s longest continually running tournament – The September Cup. The September Cup also contains an element of particular fondness for competitors as, in keeping with the tournaments history, only Subbuteo branded figures and pitches are used. So, for one tournament every year, 90s Hasbro bases rub up against 80s lightweights, 60s heavyweights and even the occasional team of cardboard or celluloid flats.

This year, 8 competitors turned up to The Old Clubhouse in Toongabbie. Split into two unseeded groups, play soon got underway on one of the coldest September days in living memory. This fact made things interesting for one pitch in particular, the outdoor verandah pitch, where players complained of cold fingers.

Adrian and Kostas in theor opening round battle.

Adrian and Kostas in their opening round battle.

Early games saw Kostas Barbaris come from behind to take a 2-1 victory over Adrian Elmer, Paul Magee and Hermann Kruse batle out a frustrating 0-0 draw, Eliot Kennedy edging Costa Kamarados 1-0 and Antonio Credentino putting 2 unanswered past Oli Ollnow who was playing with old bases for the first time in his life. By the second round of games, Oli had got much more used to the bases and ran out 2-0 over Costa. Eliot got on a goalscoring roll, beating Antonio 3-1, though the general play was closer than this. Paul and Kostas scored a goal each in their match while Adrian broke Hermann’s heart with a solitary winner scored with just 4 seconds left on the clock.

Eliot shows poise against Oli.

In the final group games, Group B was reasonably straight forward. Eliot continued his good goalscoring form, in spite of his jetlag (he had made an overnight flight from Korea just to be at the tournament) and was particularly pleased that some of his 1970s curling skills were able to be used for one goal in particular as he beat Oli 3-0. Antonio put 2 past Costa, meaning Eliot and he wrapped up the two top positions in the group. Group B was much more open, with all four players still able to progress and all four players still in danger of missing out. And this was reflected in the tightness of the games. Kostas kept up his unbeaten run with a 1-0 victory over Hermann which gave him top spot in the group and vanquished Hermann to the foot of the table. Meanwhile, Paul used the ‘Magee Swarm’ for large swathes of his match against Adrian, a factor which contributed to him scoring the game’s solitary goal when Adrian fell victim to the dreaded stranded travelling ‘keeper.

The Consolation Semi-Finals saw Adrian victorious 2-0 over Costa while the father-son showdown between Hermann and Oli provided some of the afternoon’s more boisterous moments. Players inside the clubhouse noted that things must be going bad for Hermann to celebrate a goal so loudly while playing against his son as one of his reactions to scoring on the outdoor pitch could be heard from right around the entire property! In the end, however, this was not enough, Oli running out a 3-2 victor. In the 7th/8th play-off, Hermann took out his frustrations 2-0 over Costa, who finished the tournament with the honour of not managing to get his early 80s lightweights to trouble the scorer across the day. in the 5th/6th playoff, Adrian repeated his earlier feat against Hermann, this time against the son, Oli, as he scored a winner with 13 seconds to go after a very even match.

Kostas come close against Paul in the cold in the 3rd/4th playoff.

The main Semi-Finals saw Antonio finally put Kostas’ unbeaten run to an end with a convincing 3-0 victory. The other match saw the day’s two past masters, legends of the round based figures game from the 1970s and 80s – Paul and Eliot – face each other in the showdown. And the game proved to be as exciting as it had promised. Eliot came out on top in the end (no doubt, the cider he had begun consuming was helping him overcome his jetlag) but it took all 3 of his goals to beat Paul who scored 2 of his own. The 3rd/4th play-off between Paul and Kostas found the pair unable to break each other’s defenses and so the day’s first shootout ensued. After the tightness of the game, the shootout was a one sided affair, with Paul running out a 3-0 winner after only 3 shots each, to snag 3rd place.

Which left just the Grand Final to be played between Antonio and Eliot. As with the 3rd/4th playoff (and, to show just how even things actually were between all the players across the afternoon), the 20 minutes of regular play failed to split the pair. In truth, it was a reasonably dour affair with lots of midfield tussling but not much goalmouth action. And so the players went to shots. Eliot opened his account with a goal from his first shot, then saved Antonio’s effort. From here, things went a little pear shaped for Eliot, however, as is often the case for him in shootout situations. However, he did cling on for a 2-2 scoreline at the completion of the five shots apiece. And so, to sudden death they went. Eliot’s first shot was fired straight at Antonio’s ‘keeper, knocking it away from the goal. Antonio then replied with a deft chip that beat Eliot’s ‘keeper at the near post to take the title.

A new September Cup Champion – Antonio

Thanks again to all the players who got right into the spirit of retro fun and fair play that the tournament has come to be known for. A new name on the old trophy is always a great thing as well, so well done to Antonio for joining the elite club. And, to the eternal bridesmaid, Eliot, there’s always next year.

For full results, click here.
For more photos, click here.
For full video of the Grand Final, click here (part i) and here (part ii)

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Australia at the 2022 World Cup

2019 September Cup Tournament Report