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My Passion: This sporting life – and it's finger-flicking good
I was 10 years old when I got my first Subbuteo football set – and I loved it.
It was a must-have for any football-mad youngster, and me and my mates passed many a rainy day organising football leagues, FA Cups, European Cups and World Cups on the floor or dining-room table.
I spent endless hours and braved innumerable carpet burns to snatch sporting victory from my brother and declare myself champion of our living room.
But crazes come and go, and eventually, faced with growing competition for my leisure time from computer games, my Subbuteo set was resigned to gather dust in the back of a cupboard, where it lay dormant for more than a decade.
Then, two years ago, I was aimlessly browsing the internet, when I typed in the word Subbuteo. To my joy and amazement, I found there were not only lots of other people with near-pristine Subbuteo sets in their cupboards too, but there were also plenty of people my age, and older, who were still playing and competing as a sport.
It was enough to reignite the flame. I dusted off my old boxed set, gave my flicking finger a bit of a workout, gave myself a good team talk, and set off for Wolverhampton to take part in the Wolverhampton Open.
I may not have won the day, but I did make it through to the final. There was no stopping me now.
I began searching for a club that I could join in Yorkshire. When I realised there wasn't one, I started my own – the Yorkshire Phoenix.
Now we have 25 members, all adults, who come from Wakefield, Leeds, Selby, Dewsbury and Bradford, to play at the Wakefield Wildcats RLFC ground and to train every week in one another's houses.
We hold fun club nights and testing "International" events, that attract players aged between 10 to 60 to top-class venues, including Headingley stadium, Elland Road and Huddersfield's Galpharm stadium.
Our flagship competition is the Superleague. We also offer support and guidance to teachers who want to run leagues within their schools – Subbuteo is a great way to learn maths, English and geography while you're having fun.
Some of our members also act as referee and coach at special Subbuteo events, like team bonding evenings, sportsmen's dinners and pub nights.
The sets have moved on a bit since I was a kid, though. The ones we use are top quality and the figures are custom-made, costing about 70 for a team.
The bases are still the key part, where you can slot in any plastic figure. Some like to paint them in their favourite colours, but I actually prefer to use non-painted figures because they are lighter.
And we're pretty good, if I say so myself. The Phoenix recently won the English Club Championships and we'll be representing England, in Athens, at the end of October at the 2007 European Champions League.
We're currently ranked 34th in the world and I'm 184th in the individual rankings, with fellow team member Martin Hodds 119th.
Who says you need to be in peak physical condition to be an international sports star?
Paul Lawrenson is operations manager for Yorkshire reactive maintenance company Help-Link UK, based in Castleford.
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Tuesday 22 May 2012
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