The First of them All

The holiday season is rife with annual traditions. Onions get stuffed; presents are meticulously opened and cataloged; pajamas are worn for days; trees are brought indoors and decorated; crafts are crafted ad nauseam; seasonal movies and songs air continuously; gloves are exchanged for some reason; pounds of ham and cookies are consumed; alcoholism is not only tolerated but encouraged; and, most importantly, there is much Subbuteo played.  

This time of year is especially special for the 1^st & 4^th Club since it brackets the end of one season and the opening of the new with the classic First Tournament. Though inspired by the democratic and egalitarian spirit at the core of the Club, this tournament has become anything but. That’s right, this is a tourney for the elite, the upper crust, the “one percent,” if you will. As much as it is about winning a major championship and a baller trophy, First Tournament is also about the glitz and glamor of New Year’s Eve.

Essentially, it’s the Yin to the 4^th Tourney’s Yang (or Wang, if you mean the fish.) There’s no sweating on a humid summer night in a carriage house, while enduring hours of competition after a day of races, barbeques, and Wiffleball games; no Mothra-sized insects to swat away from the pitch; no trouble from the Po-Po (not to be confused with Pop-Pop, who is a benevolent patron of the Club); and no homemade, bath-tub booze for refreshment. Rather, with the deluxe accommodations at the Collegeville Subbuteo Palace, First Tournament is a celebration of elegance and class—displayed as much on the pitch as by the attendees of this gala event. Expect champagne and hot tubs, big-ass televisions and buffets, excess and revelry at its finest.   

In terms any student of American history would understand, First Tournament would receive Alexander Hamilton’s silk-gloved support, while Thomas Jefferson would feel more comfortable in the sweat-begrimed embrace of the 4^th Tournament, although neither would deign to actually participate. (Ben Franklin, on the other hand, would play to win.) Just as the Founders intended, there's one tournament for the People, and one for the Better People. Of course, all Club members are welcome to attend the First; however, not all will be receiving an embossed invitation. (Just kidding! But it seems like some of yours might have gotten lost in the mail.) Or if you’re a literary type, just imagine if Jay Gatsby threw a Subbuteo tournament. Yeah, it’s going to be almost as good as that.

But just how good? Well, let me toss out some questions and take a few guesses at what we might expect from our not-so-humble little tourney. 

1)       Will there be a veritable tsunami of goals, or will players again be paralyzed by high-stakes competition?

2)       Will Dutch regain his form on his home turf? Or will his brother Dirty Nacho, the heir-apparent, continue his hot streak and finally claim a tournament title?

3)       Will Firewrists shake off defeat in two consecutive tournament finals and rediscover his winning ways? Or will Muncle Mark claim a third title and extend a new Schettler Dynasty into 2012?

4)       Can Kaitlyn, after a Lazarus-like return from the dead, find her form after months off? Will she even find her team? The venue?

5)       Inspired by his new Cameroon water bottle, will HBT actually score a goal in competitive play, or will the collapse at the 4^th Tourney semifinals continue to haunt him in the new season?

6)       Will a Decker win a GD tournament? Are they so cursed that even being on Firewrists’ team will bring them no success? Or is Tea the Tiniest this lineage’s last great Subbuteo hope?

7)       With a bevy of female champions and participants this past season, will one (or two?!) lay claim to a First Tournament trophy?

8)       Can competitors eschew the many distractions of the CSP and focus on the tourney, or will they succumb to the siren-song of luxury?

9)       Will The Guest Playa or Chad be called on to compete? And if so, will either go on an unprecedented run to the finals, inspiring a hopeless and embattled nation just like Seabiscuit?

10) Will the President's Cup remain as controversial as ever, or will the awarding of Der Tyrant's Whip overshadow this once prestigious accolade?

11)   And perhaps most importantly of all, will the Elusive Naked Man be found and clothed? 

And if your name is on the A-list, be sure to bring your tux, your monocle or bling, your online date, and (of course) your game, fool!

T-Dexxx out!

Answers (feel free to comment with your own):

1)       Yes, over 60 goals will be scored. This works out to about 5 goals per player; however it is more likely that Firewrists will actually score the majority of these.

2)       Yes, and no. The brothers will meet in the final, but age and experience favor Dutch.

3)       Yes, and yes. This contradicts the answer to the previous question, but deal with it.

4)       Kaitlyn will be in attendance, however her form and team will remain missing.

5)       Confusing his water bottle for a flask, his tournament performance will again be impaired.

6)       Yes. No. Yes.

7)       Yes, but it won’t be who you expect.

8)       For some yes, for others no.

9)       Yes, but no—there’s only one Seabiscuit.

10)     Yes, but Der Tyrant will be a cruel arbiter of "success."

11)     No, he will remain nude and at-large.

Abstain in the Membrane!

 Apparently, despite her best efforts not to participate in the vote for the 1^st & 4^th Club official colors, Avery’s color nomination has managed to earn this blog a healthy viewership.

Her colors (“hot pink and death black”) are featured prominently in a Google Image search—on the very first page!—thus luring unsuspecting users into our blog and exposing them to the wholesome fun that is the sport of Subbuteo.

Don’t believe me? Search for "Where are pink and black on the color wheel?" and just see the results of the Google machine yourself. It's right there ... third row down ... left of center ... Booyah!

Keep rockin’ the Interwebs 1^st & 4^th!

official tourney poster by Der Tyrant

Socrates*

The final tournament of the 1^st & 4^th Club 2011 season attempted to bring greater awareness to the dangers of energy drink addiction and its ubiquity among our society.  You might think, “Hey, that’s a petty cause to support. That seems like some kind of “#firstworldproblem”—you know what I’m saying? Like, when I have to wait in line at the box office for my symphony tickets because some chimp temp couldn’t mail them to me—now I’m standing when I could be sitting down! My life’s so hard!” Wrong, just wrong. Rampant energy drink consumption is also a second world problem (where they’re manufactured in blatantly hazardous factories) and a third world problem (where empty cans are dumped and used as currency). See? It’s a global problem, and now you’re aware.

Actually, the charity cause of the annual Advent Day o’ Craft tournament only provided a ready theme to inspire team names. And as we all know, the quality of the team’s name usually indicates the quality of their performance.  However, the universal awesomeness of the names created after the team draw emphasized what was evident in the pairings themselves: the balance between teams was greater than ever—no clear favorite stood out, although Kaitlyn’s absence stuck out like a biologist at a cryptozoology conference.

(photographs courtesy of Mary "MVP" Beth)

Chog Division: Crackshot (E & HBT)

Monkey Punch (Firewrists & The Blur 2.0)

VenomShok (Dutch & Peyton)

Loveland Frog Division: BooKoo Krü (Muncle Mark & Mary Beth)

   Kool-Aid Supreme (Dirty Nacho & Têa)

   Miniscule Junk (Der Tyrant & Avery)

Each team descended to the Millersville Subbuteo Arena believing they had a shot at winning final championship of the year—that they would stand proudly before fallen foes and admiring peers, holding aloft their bitchin’ Monster Energy Drink-inspired trophies and soaking in the glory. How so, so wrong pretty much all of them were.

Energy Drinks & Subbuteo: a Winning Combination

learning from the best: Barca vs. Real

With only a few days of preparation left before the 1^st & 4^th Club’s annual Advent charity tournament promoting Energy Drink Addiction Awareness, I must take advantage of what precious little time I have available to train at the office. As you can see, despite taking on full-time employment for the world's best damn orchestra, my training regimen has not slackened (“fagged out,” if you will.) While Mandy and Tim waste their time and energy on athletic pursuits, I sit squarely on my arse honing my already deadly-precise long-range shots. No matter how far my player may be, if that ball’s inside the shot line, you might as well not defend with your goalkeeper—your time would be better spent figuring out how to hide the look of embarrassment on your face after I’ve scored.

And to what do I owe such vim & vigor? My accumulated rage from never winning a single 1^st & 4^th Club tournament—despite my countless hours of zen visualization exercises, tactical research, and meticulous post-tourney blog posts? No, just that good old, tried-and-true energy drink: coffee (and Bailey’s.) Yep, there’s nothing like a little morning afternoon evening midnight cup o’ joe to keep me going. Energy drink addiction is a necessary evil, though we can never be too aware of its dangers. That being said ...

Grab your Bawls, capture a Monster, wrangle a Red Bull, party like a Rockstar, plug in to an Amp, or else grind up some guarana and smear it on your gums: it’s going to be a long tournament for some (but an infuriatingly short one for most) and we better be juiced to the best of our ability.

And remember, this is LAST opportunity to present your case to the committee before the 2011 1^st & 4^th Club player awards--leave it all on the pitch, cause's its not just Santa who's checking a list.

 --HBT