Co Tyrone man on Northern Ireland team taking part in Subbuteo World Cup
Six players from Northern Ireland - including Cookstown’s Ian Greer, will be heading to the Subbuteo World Cup later this month.
It will be held in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, where the game was invented in 1946 and where teams and accessories were manufactured for many years.
There will also be various events around the famous town to celebrate the table-top game which still survives among today’s modern computer games.
In Northern Ireland, Subbuteo was at its height of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when most football-loving boys would have owned a set. Some of those players kept the game going and formed the Northern Ireland Table Football Association in 2002, which has been organising events in the Province ever since.
The current Northern Ireland squad consists of Kenny Beggs from Ballyclare, Eoin Adams from Bangor, Ian Greer, Craig Stewart from Belfast and Martin Og Bradley and Lawrence Watson from Derry/Londonderry.
Most have previous World Cup and International experience in places such as Rome, Belgium and Germany, which they will need to draw on to compete against the World’s top players. Win, lose or draw, they aim to do the country proud and have fun in the process.
The table soccer action takes place from September 20-22 with 32 countries taking part and there will be live feed on the internet. Italy, are the favourites and defending World champions, and Team Northern Ireland will be hoping to get lucky.
Further information and links can be found on Northern Ireland Table Football Association website.