ASA Open May 2003

Date

May 3, 2003

Participants

Note: There is some suspicion regarding the participants in this tournament. Therefore, results have not been added to the players' records

Bruce Farrar, George Farrar, Greg Farrar, Harry Farrar
James Partipilo, Tom Partipilo
Wayne Smith, Greg Phillips, Henry Phillips, Don Smith

Report by Wayne Smith

Wayne and Irene Smith hosted the largest ASA tournament ever in Southern California as ten players vied for the not-so-famous ASA “Square Based Cup.”

It was definitely a family affair as there were four sets of brothers, including the Partipilo twins, and two of them were sets of cousins. The Phillips’ were visiting the Smiths’ from Tennessee.

The players were (see the slide show above) Bruce Farrar, James Partipilo, Wayne Smith, George Farrar, Don Smith, Greg Farrar, Tom Partipilo, Harry Farrar, Henry Phillips and Greg Phillips.

The quality of play was a bit ragged as, other than the host, the total experience of the players was about 100 games. As a result of the lack of experience, the host played all of his games left-handed.

Even though there were five tables set up (the two downstairs in the photo and three upstairs), two groups of 5 were used so that the games could be finished in a reasonable amount of time. The groups were:

Group 1:
- Wayne Smith (Werder Bremen)
- Greg Farrar (Inter Milan)
- Tom Partipilo (Italy)
- James Partipilo (Holland)
- Harry Farrar (Manchester United)
Group 2:
- Bruce Farrar (Arsenal)
- Don Smith (VfB Stuttgart)
- George Farrar (Borußia Mönchengladbach)
- Henry Phillips (Real Madrid)
- Greg Phillips (Germany)

In the first group Wayne went through without a problem, his closest game was a 1-0 win over James. Oddly enough, the only goal of the game was in the first minute. After that, the goalkeepers dominated, Wayne’s ‘keeper made two good saves and James’ ‘keeper made two of his own. James took second, which isn’t much of a surprise as none of the others in the group had ever played before. His wins were both 1-0 and he also had a 0-0 tie. Of course, there were plenty of 0-0 ties.

In Group 2, only Bruce had ever played before, so whoever could scrape a couple of goals together would make the semi’s. Well, only 6 goals were scored and they determined the two to go to the semi’s, and Bruce scored most of those. Henry Phillips’ goal against his older brother, Greg, got him a second place finish and a trip to the semi’s. Bruce’s five goals got him three wins and a first place finish.

In the Semi’s, Bruce caught on fire, scoring 3 goals on James to get into the final. Wayne beat his cousin Henry with two goals in the first 3 minutes and one with 10 seconds left. In the finals, Wayne and his experience were too much for Bruce as he walked away with a 3-0 win. It was close until the last five minutes, when Wayne added his second goal of the game. With the win, Wayne added his second ASA open championship of the year.

The champion’s post-game comment was “It was a blast getting to use a lot of my jerseys and teams. I think that Bruce would be a better player if he spent more time practicing and less time doctoring group photos. Maybe we will get a real tournament going someday!”

Winner: Wayne Smith
Runner up: Bruce Farrar

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