Aiheet

Hei pojat

Long time no email/blog! I hope you are all well and have enjoyed the Finnish summer.

I have just sent Hönkki a message, but I am coming on a flying visit to Finland with my family soon. We will be in Finland from 22 September to 5 October, but have a very full program mainly catching up with Jutta's family and friends.

At this stage I have a little free time on the evening of Monday 26 September and free days on Monday 3 and/or Tuesday 4 October.

Are you guys still meeting regularly? Would love to catch up if at all possible. I have not played since early last year, but what the heck!

All the best.

Eliot

Hello to all my Finnish friends and to strangers alike!

Hönkki has asked me to let you know how the game is progressing 'Down Under' and it is my pleasure to do so.

For the moment, we are still largely at a fairly early organising stage. Robert Smith, who is from Perth in Western Australia and who participated in a tournament in Singapore a few months ago, has been gathering the names of interested players from around Australia and is building a database of names. At the moment, he has about 40 names on the database, including former national champion Robert Green, who has been living in Stockholm for some years, not so far from Helsinki 

The next stage will be to try to get some tournaments happening in Australia and possibly regular leagues in a number of Australian cities, but obtaining the necessary equipment and finding suitable venues will be a challenge.

Some of the Finnish lads met my old friend Steve Dettre in Rotterdam recently for the World Cup. Together with Gary Hosie (Australia's best player ever), Steve was the main organiser of table football in Australia for many years. While his work and family prevent him from having a major organisational role now, his visit to Rotterdam has got the big fella interested again in helping to get things moving, which can only be good.

Apart from hopefully having some games happening in Australia over the next months, a longer term goal will be to send an Aussie team to the 2012 World Cup in England. If that happens, a Suomi v Australia international would just have to happen!

I am looking forward to seeing some of you when I come to Finland this Christmas. I'd better start having a flick soon if I don't want to be completely hammered 

All the best.

Eliot

Moi kaikki

Sorry this is in English, mutta minä en puhu Suomea!!

As some of you might know, Jani 'Puppe' Mustonen and I are playing in the Milton Keynes International Open in England on 17 and 18 March. There is an individual tournament on Saturday 17 March, and a teams event on the Sunday. Puppe and I are both entered in the Open category on Saturday - I hope to play both Open and Veterans, but that probably won't be possible.

The tournament is quite large, with the following entrants so far:

71 Open
12 Vets
7 Under 19
2 Ladies

There are players from 16 countries so far registered! The website for the tournament is www.subbuteoplayersforum.co.uk/home.html

Entries close on 13 March. If one more player from Finland could make it, we could enter a 'Helsinki All Stars' team for the Sunday competition (you really need 4 for a team, but can play with 3 players). If we don't have enough for a team, Puppe and I hope to play for one of the other teams on the Sunday and/or some friendlies, maybe against the guys from Norway and Denmark for some Scandinavian action....

Let me know ASAP if you might be interested in coming along.