Category: International

A GTSA team of Tom Burns, Colin Day, Willie Fleming and Dave Gladman heads south this weekend to compete in the Cardiff Grand Prix at the Swalec Stadium, home of Glamorgan County Cricket Club. This will be the first time a GTSA team has competed outside of Scotland since the 2012 Amsterdam Grand Prix. On the Sunday a total of 18 teams from Wales, England, Belgium, Greece and Malta will take part. GTSA are the only Scottish entrants. On the Saturday the 4 Glasgow players will all play in the Individual Veteran category which currently has 34 entrants.

 

GTSA are ranked at 45 with Valletta the highest ranked team taking part at 3. Tom Burns is the eighth ranked player (45) and this will give him seeding since there are expected to be eight qualifying groups. Other rankings: Colin Day (98), Dave Gladman (128) and Willie Fleming (209). Top ranked player taking part is Antonio Montano (6).

The team event which took place at Easter Road on the Saturday saw Glasgow drawn with Valetta and London/Essex A. The key match was therefore against the London/Essex side. It did not help that Tom Burns and Barry Corr had to go straight into their games after their journey from Glasgow. Barry Corr, Dave Gladman and Martin Phee all scored first in their matches but all went on to lose 2-1. Tom Burns was always chasing his game against Paul Andreas and lost 3-2. It was damage limitation against Valetta, Burns losing 4-1 to Matt Lampitt, Gladman 4-0 to Jason Pisani, Corr 6-0 to Chris Thomas and Phee very heavily to Mark (please learn to flick properly) Gauci. Glasgow, therefore, were left to compete in the Plate.

 

 

 

The odds were in Glasgow’s favour when they played Yorkshire Phoenix B, a team with only three players, in the Plate semi-final. Tom Burns and Martin Phee recorded victories 3-1 and 2-0 to win the contest. Barry Corr, 2-1 down to Russ Harker at half-time, was replaced by Dave Gladman who couldn’t pull back the deficit and lost 4-3. Glasgow then faced Manchester TFC in the final. Wins by Tom Burns (3-1 against Danny Lilley) and Dave Gladman (5-2 against Connor Bowden) and a 0-0 draw between Barry Corr and Trevor Schott were enough to win the match. Brian Daly beat Martin Phee 9-0. Manchester will perhaps regret that their strongest player played Glasgow’s weakest. Wins for Burns and Gladman were never in doubt so the key game was between Corr and Schott. Well done to Corr for keeping a clean sheet in this tense affair.

 

The tournament was won by Bristol (a kind of Subbuteo super club) who defeated Valetta (a team including Gloster Gladiators Chris Thomas and Matt Lampitt) in the final.

 

Pictures from the day

 

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In July, during his tour of Greece, Dave Gladman made two visits to the Olympia Subbuteo Club in Athens. The club rent premises in Athens and meet twice a week on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Tables are therefore permanently set up. They play from about 5pm through to 1 or 2am in the morning!

 

 

Many thanks to George Papadopoulos and all the players for their hospitality!

Ευχαριστώ πολύ για την φιλοξενία σας!

 

More pictures from Olympia:

 

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This event proved to be a successful one for Glasgow’s Tom Burns. He reached the final inthe Veterans’ category only to lose to Malcolm Lees on shots.

 

Tom  receives his runner-up trophy

 

None of the other players managed to qualify out of their groups but Dave Gladman and Zoltan Hegedus reached the final of the Plate, Gladman winning 2-0.

 

 

The Open Category was won by Steve Bennett who, in the final, defeated Mike Burns by a single goal at the end of extra time.

 

 

 

 

Results involving Glasgow players:

 

Open Qualifying

 

Z Hegedus	0	5	S Bennett
Z Hegedus	1	4	K Christopher
Z Hegedus	3	1	C Lynch
B Corr	0	1	G Christie
B Corr	3	0	N Christopher
B Corr	1	2	B Staples

 

 

Veteran Qualifying

 

T Burns	8	0	J Bottomley
T Burns	2	1	S Fleming
T Burns	4	2	A Curtis
D Gladman	0	1	M Parnaby
D Gladman	1	1	M Lees
D Gladman	3	1	G Higgins

 

 

Veteran Semi-Final

 

T Burns

7

2

M Parnaby

 

 

Veteran Final

 

T Burns

2

2

M Lees

Lees won 3-2 on shots

 

Other pictures from the weekend

 

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Champions: GTSA!!

 

Zoltan Hegedus, Tom Burns, Dave Gladman, Barry Corr

 

 

Four teams contested the event – GTSA, two teams from Hot Club and NETFA Teeside. GTSA had four players whilst the other teams had only three and so started each match with an advantage. GTSA began with a 4-0 victory over NETFA, followed by a 2-2 draw with Hot Club B and finishing with a 3-1 win over Hot Club A.

 

Results to follow

This took place over the weekend of 4/5 May. The individual event was on the Saturday and it was a successful day for Tom Burns as he reached the Quarter-finals of the Vets’ competition. Congratulations to Glasgow’s number 2! This should see him move up the Vets’ table when the May rankings are released.

 

 

Group results

 

T Burns	1	0	G Brightwell
J Bottomley	0	7	T Burns
R McCormick	1	6	T Burns
T Burns	1	1	R Stock

 

RANK GROUP 6 – Vets	Pts	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GD
T.Burns	10	4	3	1	0	12	1	11
R.Stock	10	4	3	1	0	12	2	10
R.McCormick	4	4	1	1	2	3	9	-6
G.Brightwell	3	4	1	0	3	5	6	-1
J.Bottomley	1	4	0	1	3	0	14	-13

 

 

Barrage

 

A Cook

1

2

T Burns

 

Quarter-finals

 

D Scheen

8

0

T Burns

Congratulations are due to Zoltan Hegedus on reaching the final of the Mezobereny Open in Hungary! Unfortunately he lost narrowly to Pedro Reis of Portugal. After qualifying out of his group with 3-0 and 6-0 victories, Zoltan defeated Zsolt Pal 2-0 in the quarter-final. A 3-1 victory over Andras Hicz in the semi set up the final clash against the Portuguese. With the players locked at 1-1 at half-time it was Reis who scored the only goal of the second half. Well done to Zoltan, so close to the first FISTF Open victory outside Scotland for a GTSA player.

 

The World Rankings for March have been released by FISTF. Most players have risen up the rankings due to participation in the Grand Prix. GTSA ‘B’ team have moved up 41 places to 80. Top Open player is Dave Butler up 34 to 121. Colin Berry rises 106 places! Barry Corr enters the rankings for the first time. Top Veteran is still Tom Burns but he remains at 57. Last month’s placings are in brackets.

 

Open

 

Dave Butler	121	(155)
Zoltan Hegedus	215	(236)
Colin Berry	284	(390)
Ronnie McKenzie	434	(503)
Barry Corr	621	(—–)
Baver Bari	355	(423)

 

 

Veteran

 

Tom Burns	57	(57)
Colin Day	88	(95)
Dave Gladman	150	(172)
Willie Fleming	169	(151)

 

 

Teams

 

GTSA ‘A’	48	(50)
GTSA ‘B’	80	(121)

 

 

Top Scottish Open player is Steve Bennett (55), top Vet is Malcolm Lees (43) and top team is Hot Club D’ Ecosse (42). Number 1 Open player is Saverio Bari (Italy). Francesco Mattiangeli (Italy) is top Vet and SC Stembert (Belgium) is the number 1 team.

 

 

GTSA wishes good luck to Zoltan Hegedus as he returns to Hungary for the International Open ‘B’ of Mezobereny. Having just risen 21 places up the World Rankings to 215, this is an opportunity for Zoltan to break into the top 200! The Hungarian Association is still in its infancy and Zoltan has high hopes of a good performance. The competition takes place on Sunday 7th April. Full details of the outcome will be posted here on the GTSA website.

 

 

The opposition in Hungary shouldn’t be as tough as Kaspar Bennett!

 

About 200km from Budapest, Mezobereny (population about 11,000) is in south-east Hungary, quite close to the Romanian border.

 

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