By Rory Reynolds
SCOTLAND’S tiny players failed to make a big win at the Subbuteo championships in Edinburgh last weekend.
More than 60 players from across Europe took part in this year’s Scottish Table Soccer Grand Prix at Easter Road.
Three Scots sides took on teams from Austria, Italy, Belgium, Malta, Holland, as well as England and Wales at the biggest UK fixture.
But the die-hard Austrian contenders ensured that the Scots did not take their own home title home this year.
The team final saw world champions TFC Mattersburg – which are paid and rumoured to practice every day – take down rivals Wiener Neustadt.
Edinburgh’s Hot Club D’Eccosse and Glasgow’s Table Soccer Association were both knocked out at the group stages of the ten team event.
Brawl
And at the individual contest, despite the best efforts of Mike Burns and Craig Lynch, the Scots pair went out at the last 16 stage.
England champion Chris Thomas from Teeside made it as far as the semi-finals, before losing to plastic Pele Eric Verhagen, a former professional footballer and current world no.1, who went on to win the mini-cup.
While last weekend’s championship was trouble free, the events are no stranger to controversy, with police being called to a championship in Paris recently after a brawl broke out.
And there was no repeat of an infamous incident in 2006 where a janitor went berserk at the same Edinburgh championship and sent the tiny players flying.
Mike Burns, president of the Scottish Sports Table Football Association and Edinburgh club player, said: “The individual event was always going to be a tall order for the home grown players especially as the World’s no.1 player was present at the event.
Success
“This proved to be correct as out of the 23 Scottish players competing in the tournament, the last two standing were myself and Craig Lynch who both succumbed at the last 16 stage of the tournament to the two eventual finalists.
“But the weekend itself was deemed a huge success by all and with Scottish players making up over a third of the entry list it shows that there is still interest for the game out there.
“Although we do have a little way to go until we catch up with the top European players.”
