Southend-on-Sea Old Subbuteo Club Tournament 2019

Rocket: Last Christmas he experienced OldSubbuteo at the SoF, and has now brought the Old Sods with him!

Puffin: Genius creator - breathing 00-scale life into Harry Potter, and Star Wars figures!

JohnCLU48: A seasoned OldSubbuteo traveller - Always seeking authentic OldSubbuteoic experiences!

Down the Wing: Doesn't know he is called 'Down the Wing' yet, but when your surname is 'Heron', that was destined to happen!

Spudski: Spud, Spudder, Spudderman. making his long awaited visit to the SoF - so overdue and so anticipated by the thousands of 00-scale spectators!

The Cat: The legend of the Flats game - a genuine Old. A multi-national champion who is a true sport - happy to play with everyone on all of the impossible pitches at the SoS OSC events, year after year!

VecchiaGuardia1972: The 'Old Soldier' who returns to this corner of England most every year!

The Craftsman: Current holder of the Sportsmanship award on the English National Flats Championships - never not having fun with Subbuteo!

Barreteo: Has a surprising turn of pace when presented with a shooting opportunity. The thoughts of a bad back disappear as he sheds approximately 30 years in mind and body!

Ute Ubo: Always flickin' and always rockin' - For those about to flick - we salute Ute!

Malts: Always utterly surprised at what can happen in Subbuteo - most frequently used phrase: "I don't believe it! ?"

Gullseye: A mythical appearance at the SoF wearing glam-rock platform boots, to enhance reach!

Forfoxsake: Was there ever a person so OldSubbuteo as Forfoxsake. The benchmark of bonkersness and pure enjoyment...bringing his 00-figures alive in every game!

Ghigliotti09: So happy to play OldSubbuteo with anyone and everyone, and no-one ever gets hammered, despite the talent that flows from his finger-nail!

Youbutteo: Youbutteo - You beauty! - Quality enthusiast - no-one collects with more enthusiasm - no-one!

JLR: Will be making the trip after watching Canterbury City v Corinthian with the other 155 fanatical supporters!

Snake70: So disappointed when the Harry Potter train stopped working during his game on the Subbwarts pitch last year - this is exactly what we should get disappointed about in life! ...This year Rudi, this year!...

Donald Crowhurst: The legendary fabiobertola, always and forever 'Old'!

T'was the night before the tournament, when all thro' the house, not a creature was stirring...until the Old Sods turned up for a spot of Subbuteo Cricket!

As ever with the Old Sods, there was Much Ado about Banter. The various clips of the match highlights are shown here...

This clip captures the mood. A ball delivered by Ute Ubo, which Puffin may or may not have fended off. Plenty of (dodgy) opinions are given, and the game stops for a 'Review' as everyone goes downstairs to check the video replay...

Group A

After some 30 goals have been scored, twice as many shots saved, and a few blunders and lucky flicks, the group table shows The Cat clear at the top.

With all players picking up points it was quite tight for the qualifying places for the Stadium of Fingers Cup, but the draw specialist Puffin edged the Craftsman for the final place.

Snake70 recovered well after a couple of early losses to end up 3rd in the table.

The Craftsman is duly entered into into the Tournament of Scoundrels ?

Group B

Ghigliotti09 makes it a clean sweep, leaving, a Fox, a Gull and a Spud fighting over runners-up spot, with the expansive free-flowing style of the Fox creating a healthy goal-average and winning through.

Gullseye showed a shrewd Old Subbuteo head on Old Subbuteo shoulders as he amassed 5 points despite only scoring 2 goals!

Rocket and Malts valiantly contested the bottom of the table, with Malts claiming the Southernmost spot on account of Rocket getting a draw with Gullseye.

Both Rocket and Malts however are destined for the Tournament of Scoundrels...

Group C

Both JLR and JohnClu48 achieved infinite goal average! ? ? To be fair, neither player was expecting this at the beginning of the day, but it happened, so they can both make a justified entry into their respective Subbuteo diaries...

JLR however, took the qualification spot for the Stadium of Fingers Cup on goals scored.

Youbuteo had success(!), after his more modest performances at the recent Christmas event, where he acknowledge publicly on his Youbuteo youtube channel that he "lost massively!"

Barreteo and Down the Wing both got off the mark with a draw when they met in Old Subbuteo Town.

At 1pm in the afternoon, Snake70 hadn't won a game! In contrast, Ghigliotti09 had won 4!

It appears Snake70's secret is to play other animals, as the afternoon saw an epic cup run, seeing off a Gull, a Fox and a Cat! ?

Ghigliotti remained the favourite though - the current holder of the Stadium of Fingers Cup and reigning national flats champion...

However, the Stadium of Fingers is no respecter of reputations and after a stunning 3-1 victory, the Year of the Snake came 2 years early! ?

The Old Subby Cup, contested by 2 Old Sods.

Which Old Sod would be the Oldest and Subbiest?

This was a tense, serious affair with a strong competitive edge to it - only broken by non-stop banter and incessant bonkerness!

It turns out it wasn't a tense, serious, competitive affair after all! ?

Ute was a true sport in his defeat, and congratulated Spudski on his victory by writing on the tournament sheet "won by a sneaky goal!"

Both players had been here before...

JohnClu48 was here last year, when he lost a close game to Loscao 0-1.

The Craftsman reached the Scoundrels Cup Final in the very first tournament in 2015, where he lost out in a sudden-death shoot-out to Donald 'Fabio' Crowhurst.

For one it would be a glorious victory and for the other it would be a glorious defeat... ?

The Craftsman won through, scoring 2 goals. This was the main talking point during the evening meal, as The Craftsman acknowledges he doesn't score 2 goals in a game...

The stage: The traditional carpet pitch for the final of the tournament of the Unfortunate Finger.

The players: Vecchiaguardia - in his fourth SoS OSC tournament, and Rocket in his first. Neither player had experienced the carpet pitch before, so this would be a test of nimble knees, and which Old could reconnect with those muscles that used to play on the floor all those years ago.

As it turns out, Rocket tuned in to those formative years, when families were too poor to have a table they could dedicate to Subbuteo, and the living room carpet became the field of dreams!

A picture tells a thousand words...

If you take part in an SoS OSC Tournament, and lose your group matches, you play in the Tournament of Scoundrels.

If you get knocked out of the Tournament of Scoundrels, you get to play in the Tournament of the Unfortunate Finger (S'fortunato Finger Cup).

If you lose the final, you win the trophy pictured, and then you take a picture of your trophy and put in on the Internet!

Bravissimo vecchiaguardia! ?

This is Old Subbuteo! ???

The concept

After a few S-o-S OSC tournaments it became clear that something else was needed to complement the 4 Finals, for the Olds that had the misfortune to get knocked out in the various cups.

The concept of the Melee was created, giving the opportunity for these players to play one last game.

With 18 Olds taking part in this year's tournament, this meant 10 players would be involved in the inaugural event!

All things considered, the event went fairly smoothly with all players slotting into their respective roles with a commendable degree of knowledge, skill and decorum (apart from mostly Gerald…!)

A five-a-side game duly commenced with players taking different roles within their team...

1st half: Team A and Team B each have:

Player 1 – Attacker if the ball is in the attacking half

Player 2 – Attacker if the ball is in the defending half

Player 3 – All defending flicks

Player 4 – Goalkeeper, kicking goalie and goal-kicks

Player 5 – Free-kicks, throw-ins and corner-kicks

2nd half: All players change roles...

In the first half all players were involved apart from Jim (Forfoxsake) Westwood, who was desperately waiting for a throw-in, corner or free-kick to happen. Eventually however, with seconds remaining his team were awarded a throw-in! He lined up the thrower – took careful aim, and then the half-time whistle went! The taking of the throw-in was therefore judged null and void and duly wiped from the record as ever happening! ?

The second half saw our newbie Down the Wing playing an assured role as his team’s ‘Defending Attacker’ (enthusiastically advised by 4 teammates), and with one minute to go, a throw-in was awarded to his team, with Kev ‘The Cat’ Dyson using the mandatory throw-in figure.

After a practice throw-in which went sideways 1 inch and spun backwards off the pitch. Kev threw the ball 12 inches spinning in front of Jonathan ‘JLR’ Lopez-Real’s centre forward. Without missing a heartbeat JLR shot and scored! Four teammates roared their approval. Jonathan was somewhat taken aback at the racket he caused by scoring at Subbuteo, and estimated the noise to be louder than the combined efforts of the 98 fans that attended the Canterbury v Corinthian Isthmian League match the previous day!

A great event, and certainly to be repeated at future SoS OSC events! Naturally the rules will evolve as the number of players vary... For example, someone to do all positional flicks for all dead ball situations... Eventually we should be able to get a game of 11 v 11 with 3 subs!

The Melee Trophy

Inspired by the John Waddington Trophy, famously held by young Subbuteo prodigy Andrea Piccaluga from 1978-1982, the Melee Trophy celebrates the achievement of finding people to play Subbuteo with!

If you turn up to a SOS OSC event, and fail to make one of the finals, then you will play for the Melee Trophy, alongside all of the other 'Olds' who got knocked out of the tournaments. The inscription sums it al up: "It's not the winning or the losing, it's the finding someone to play..."

Here's David 'Down the Wing' Heron receiving the Trophy as honorary captain of the first ever Melee winners.

Puffin & Ute Ubo

The first match of the day, and the first members of the Old Sods OSC to play in the Stadium of Fingers.

Puffin and Ute Ubo have played many entertaining matches between them in Old Sods meets, and this may well have been their first game together on the road.

This was a Group A match, which somehow ended 0-0 ?

Rocket & Malts

Rocket is back for more after his Christmas experiences, and faces Malts, who is trying out his flats team, after locating his goalkeeper that he left behind the last time he visited the Stadium of Fingers!

This is a Group B match. It ends goalless, but Rocket was pressing for the win...

In this clip a nice move ends up with a shot on the fly...

JohnClu48 & JLR

These two Olds have played in almost all SoS OSC Tournaments. You'd have thought they would have played each other before, but this was in fact their first meeting.

This clip shows a wonderful 'ave-it' moment. John gets bored of his 3 players surrounding the ball, and hoofs it with his centre back, launching the ball and two of his own players down the pitch! All 3 of them go for a goal kick! ?

Then John says "Goal kick?", and JLR says "Yep", like everything was normal...?

Spudski & Forfoxsake

This has been a match a long time in the waiting!

Two of the Old Subbuteo legends, both of them scoundrels of the English and the Italian Old Subbuteo scenes, finally meeting for the first time in the Stadium of Fingers.

These clips show some great action, and some show no action at all, as it's the chat between them that features, sometimes more than the actual flicking of the figures! ?

Gullseye & Ghigliotti09

Gullseye first played in the Stadium of Fingers in 2015 and realised that it can be a challenge to reach over the terracing to flick the players. The next year he arrived at the tournament after digging out his old 1970s platform boots! This prompted the design of the ramped platform along the West Stand, and Gullseye's boots have been safely stored away back in the loft!

Ghigliotti wasn't using platform boots either in this game - he was using flats!...

Gulleye was playing with the Lionesses... ?

The Craftsman & Donald Crowhurst

The last time The Craftsman met Donald Crowhurst in a SoS OSC Tournament was the 2015 Scoundrels Cup Final. The score: The Craftsman 0 Donald Crowhurst 1

Finally, four years later there was a chance to address the balance....

The final score in this encounter had to be... The Craftsman 0 Donald Crowhurst 1.

Unlucky Adam! Maybe in the next game in 2023! ?

Barreteo & The Craftsman

After some entertaining group matches Barreteo and The Craftsman found themselves in the Tournament of Scoundrels... This was to be a needle match, not because if was their first competitive encounter, but because this was a match between Father-in-Law and Son-in-Law! ?

The Craftsman has been playing for several years and had encouraged his Father-in-Law to give it a go. So... Barreteo's first experience of an organised tournament... Bragging rights were at stake!

Down the Wing & Rocket

Unfortunately, whoever was doing the recording forgot to press 'record' until the second half had started. As it turned out, Down the Wing was quite happy with this as he was 2-0 down by then, and was relieved to know that this would not be recorded for posterity!

Rocket on the other hand was slightly disappointed as this meant he would need to rely on his memory for his first ever goal scored in the Stadium of Fingers! ?

Sorry, Rocket!

Snake70 & Ghigliotti09

These two had met twice before in SoS OSC tournaments.

In 2015, they had played a Group D match on the Anglo-Italian pitch (fittingly!), where the match had finished all square 1-1.

Then in 2018 they had met at the Seaside, in the semi-final of the Stadium of Fingers Cup, where Ghigliotti won 2-1 on the way to his glorious tournament victory! ?

A technical problem with the recording means we just have the 2nd Half! ? We join the action with Snake70 1-0 up!