Subbuteo in Australia

[Eliot Kennedy]

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

[Hönkki]

Definitely there will be Finland - Australia !!  8)

What are the exact dates when you will be staying in Finland ?
 

[Eliot Kennedy]

What are the exact dates when you will be staying in Finland ?
 

We are arriving on 22 December and leaving on about 15 January. We will probably be in Lapland from about 9 January until just before we leave for Australia. Have to make sure we see some snow 

[vincentcop]

What are the exact dates when you will be staying in Finland ?
 

We are arriving on 22 December and leaving on about 15 January. We will probably be in Lapland from about 9 January until just before we leave for Australia. Have to make sure we see some snow 

I can suggest Finalnd to organize a tournament (maybe a Satellite or something) during this period then? 

By the way, for those who want to know about the game in Australia, here is a blog at http://subbuteo-australia.blogspot.com/

[Eliot Kennedy]

Hello lads!

Great news from Australia. We are having our first tournament for many years this Saturday 20 March!

Still waiting to hear if is officially endorsed by FISTF, but in any case we will have 10-12 guys here in Sydney, including Rob Smith from Perth who has become the main driving force to get the game going again here and who has played a couple of FISTF tournaments in Singapore.

The tournament is being held in the work premises of my old friend Steve Dettre, who a number of you met at the World Cup last year.

I have not played since our tournament in January in Helsinki, so have no great expectations for Saturday. Hopefully I won't be quite as rusty as I was then, but in any case it'll just be great to be playing again here in Australia 

I'll let you know how it all went after the event.

Maybe next time I can give a lot more warning and some of you can play Down Under 

All the best.

Eliot

[Rossonero]

Excellent news, Eliot!

Interesting to hear how it went and how you played. Best luck (and skill) to the tournament.

If only you'd informed us before, then we could've have been there...

[Eliot Kennedy]

Hi guys

Thanks for the good wishes Vesa!

Our tournament went well today, with 10 guys showing up. We had 2 groups of 3 and one of 4.

The tournament was won by an Englishman, Peter Thomas, against another Englishman (who has actually lived here for 9 years and now represents Australia), Rob Smith - 3-1 in the final. Bloody Poms!! Peter is the brother of a top English player Chris Thomas, who coincidentally beat me 6-1 when I played a tournament in Milton Keynes in 2007.

Peter beat me 2-1 in the semi (I won my group with two wins). I was 1-0 up against Peter a bit against the run of play and he deserved to win, but overall I was pleased how I played against him (it was his closest result) and generally. I won the play-off for 3rd 2-1 against Antonio Carabillo, an Italian guy living in Hong Kong, who is a friend of Rob's a flew down just for the tournament! He scored with 2 seconds left, so I was not in danger of losing.

I used my new Profibase figures for the first time and generally liked them - still need to practice and play with them more, but they seem very good.

It's great to have finally had a tournament here in Australian after a 15 year break! We will see what happens but hope that a small group of us can get together every month or two for a flick, with more formal tournaments 2 or 3 times a year. Will definitely give more notice of any future tournanments and expect to see a planeload of Suomelainen here for it

All the best.

Eliot

[Eliot Kennedy]

Hi Guys

I hope this finds you all well and enjoying the Finnish summer.

Just a quick post to let you know that we will be holding our next official FISTF tournament here in Sydney on Saturday 20 November, the Sydney International Open. It is still not clear if we will have an event on the Sunday too, but I'll let you know as soon as it's decided. So far, there is interest from players in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand & Sweden as well as from Australia of course.

If anyone is palnning a trip Down Under and is interested, please let me know (either by posting a reply here a sending me an email to eliotjutta@gmail.com). It'd be great to have some Finnish lads here and we would be sure to show you a good time!

All the best.

Eliot

[Rossonero]

Hi Eliot!

Nice to hear that things are happening down under. Rob Smith has informed some forums about the activity, but always great to hear from you. Good luck with the tournament! It's a pity that it's so long way away.

So far, there is interest from players in... ...Sweden

What activity is there in Sweden? Could you tell this player that he can contact us also, or vice versa (if we get his address or something).

[Eliot Kennedy]

Hi Vesä!

Nice to hear from you too. Sorry for the delay in replying - have not logged on for a while.

It'd be great if some boys from Finland could make it, but it is a long way.

I'll see if I can find out how the Swedish guys is and get back to you.

Cheers.

Eliot

[Hönkki]

I'll see if I can find out how the Swedish guys is and get back to you.

Hi Elliot,

I have been in contact with Bob Green and Nicklas Persson and some others who I cannot remember right now. I hope we'll have a chance to play with the swedish players (or any player living in Sweden) someday and I would be very interested to know about table football in Sweden in general. So far none of them have visited our tournaments and vice versa.

[Eliot Kennedy]

Hi everyone

Long time no post! Hope you are all going well.

Just to let you know that we will be having our first tournament in Sydney for over two years next Saturday 15 September. It will I think be as much a promotional thing as a competitive tournament, but it will count for WASPA points purposes.

There is a link to the tournament at http://www.subbuteo-australia.blogspot.com.au/

I am completely out of practice as usual, but looking forward to having a flick again! I'll let you know who we go.

All the best.

Eliot

[vincentcop]

Happy to see the "in english" section of the forum is still alive!

[Eliot Kennedy]

Happy to see the "in english" section of the forum is still alive!

Thanks Vincent for your support. We had our tourney yesterday and it went really well, with 13 players including 6 'newbies', that is guys who'd never played before, taking part. Brett Davis, the organiser,did a great job and  hopes to get a club together in western Sydney, which would be terrific.  It is possibly too far for some us to go to regularly - it is more than 100 kilometres there and back from my place! - but if we could have even quarterly tournaments where more of us come to play it would be a big advance on the last couple of years.

A real plus yesterday was having Robert Green play - he is over in Australia for his sister's birthday - as well as Steve Dettre. I know some of the Finnish boys have met Steve and Greenie in the last few years.

We played the 'Swiss' system, four rounds. I managed to just win on goal difference from Greenie, but the main thing was just playing again and getting some new guys interested in the game 

All the best.

Eliot

[Hönkki]

It's great to hear news from Australia. I have played with Robert Green in Stockholm (0-0 of course) and I have met Steve Dettre in World Cup in Rotterdam. I believe you had an enjoyable tournament. 6 newbies is also promising.

Maybe we'll see sometimes both Eliot and Robert in our tournaments here in Finland. For Robert it wouldn't be so long way to come over here from Sweden.

All the best
Kari