Foosball experiences as I remember

them from the 70's

foosball: AKA fussball, foosh, and table soccer

July 12, 2003 - I was reminiscing about foosh a few days ago during my morning commute. I figured I may as well get this down before it is totally lost from memory. In the mid-seventies, I was a fairly serious tournament player. Not serious enough or delusional enough to think I could make a living at it. Back then, loading 5 or more people in a car and driving to tournaments, I had to finish at least 3rd to cover my expenses. Even winning a ton (And I won more than any of the local tournament players) of local tournaments only frayed practice expenses. It was the competition that kept me playing. I loved it. Going on the road to tournaments was a treat. I played in Houston several times, Dallas a few times, Tulsa, Rogers, Joplin, and Corpus Christi.

The tables we liked are called Texas tables. There are two manufacturers, Dynamo and Tornado. I think they're still around today. I started out on Dynamos as a forward but I preferred Tornadoes.

In addition to the fun at the tournaments, all of the tournament players used to gather afterwards somewhere and party. And, man, did we party! I remember a beer can pyramid standing against a hotel room wall in Rogers, Arkansas that covered every square inch of it. Rogers is in a dry county. We had to drive 30 miles whenever we needed beer. We played drinking games, mainly Caps, which we learned from the Texas players. In Caps, you sit on the floor about 12-15 feet apart with a cup or glass of beer on the floor in front of you. You throw a beer bottle cap at your opponent's glass and he, in turn, throws one at yours. If you land a cap in his glass, he has to land one in yours. If he doesn't, he has to drink his glass of beer in a certain amount of time. The more caps you make, the drunker your opponent gets and the harder it is for them to sink a cap in your glass. The New Orleans players, though new to Caps, were easily the best players at it. We had an enormous advantage. We grew up drinking beer in and around New Orleans. The beer in New Orleans is 5% alcohol. In Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, they drank three-two beer, which was 3% alcohol. Three-two beer was like water to us.

I played forward with goalie Glen Guillott in the 1975 Tornado Nationals in Houston at a place called The Rusty Keg. The Rusty Keg was a huge three-part bar. I don't know if it's still there. We didn't do very well but gained invaluable experience. It was there that we encountered "still" passes for only the second time. The forward would drop the ball with spin so it went to his side. He would then set the ball up at a dead stop about an inch from the near wall with his back "five-row". From there, he would hit the ball straight or slam it against the wall and catch it with his front row. Done well, it was nearly impossible to stop. I realized at this tournament that my days as a forward were over. My passing skills were pretty good (Though some of the guys using "still" passes were quite a bit better) but my forward shooting skills were pretty bad. I had a great pull shot on Dynamo tables but the goal was smaller on Tornadoes and I never could make the adjustment. Also, we were probably not tough enough, mentally, to really compete in that tournament.

In 1976, I converted to goalie and found my real ability in that sport. I played with a variety of forward partners and did pretty well with all of them. Most of my offensive skills were from the near side of the table. I did push shots and push-kicks. Since just about every other goalie was working the other side of the table with pull shots, defenses were more naturally inclined to stop them. I unnerved a lot of players shooting from the other side. The push-kick, in particular, was a nasty shot. From almost on the wall, I pushed the ball a good two inches further out than most people expected and a whole lot faster than they expected. It made a thunderous noise when it went in and that rattled people. My defense was OK. The best goalies only block about a third of the shots from good tournament-quality forwards on average, anyway.

That year, I played at the Tornado Nationals in Dallas with Ronnie "Bomb" Wroten. We called him "Bomb" because of his long pull shot. There were two basic goalie defenses then. Inverted, where you tried to block the long stuff with the front bar and you let the goalie trail to stop the short stuff. And, standard, where you try to block the long pull shot with the back bar, the goalie, and try to block everything else with the front bar. If you guessed wrong where the shot was going or was late getting to that spot, it didn't matter what defense you were playing. The standard defense was harder to play and required a bit more discipline. The inverted defense was easier and was great against mediocre shooters. It had two major, glaring weaknesses, however. A straight in shot seemed to go in even if you were parked there with your goalie. Also, if you pushed that front bar all the way to the wall, your front man left a hole in your goal about the width of the ball for a long pull shot. That was "dead man long" or just "dead long". In 1976, it was a fluke shot for most forwards but Bomb could slam it there all day. If you played inverted defense, he didn't have to think. If he had the ball, he was going long and he scored every time. He was a great shooter against any defense. Unfortunately, his passing ability was rather poor and we didn't get very far. We lost to Mark "Tuna" Neely and Kevin Keeter (Tuna and Skeeter, as I recall) in the first round. I smoked several screaming push-kicks past Tuna but it wasn't enough. I think we lost in four games. I have no idea who beat us in the loser's bracket. This was the last tournament where "still" passes were allowed and I, for one, was glad to see this day. They were never allowed in New Orleans. From this point on, forwards had to touch at least two men and the ball had to be moving to be passed forward. Mark Crowell and Marty Chase won the tournament.

I stayed for a week with Ronnie Lewis (He was actually from New Orleans and his grandparents still lived there) in Houston sometime after that. I first met Ronnie when he was touring the country for Dynamo playing exhibition matches with George Garber. Glen and I played them in New Orleans at Glen's dad's place in Kenner (It was called the Purnurple Palace). We lost. That was the first time we encountered a "still" pass. Back then, Houston was the Mecca of foosh. Dallas, Tulsa, Joplin, and New Orleans had some good and some great players but the highest concentration of great players was in Houston. It was a terrific experience. I learned a lot about the players and their styles. Once I hung around with them, they no longer intimidated me. I also learned then that great passing forwards tended to be mediocre shooters and that mediocre passers tended to be great shooters. Playing with a forward that had the former trait infuriated me. The first team to five won the game and those guys needed 8 to 15 shots to make 5 goals. I preferred playing with the great shooters. We drove to Corpus to play in a tournament. I played with Mark Snyder, whom I had never played with before. He's a great shooter although not in that tournament. We didn't do very well. The only consolation was that we lost to the eventual winners (Gary Pfeil and Lori Schranz). It was held on Tournament Soccer tables and Gary was good on those.

1977 was my best year. Sometime after Bomb and I played in the 76 Nationals, we swapped partners with our main rivals. I teamed up with David Owens and he teamed up with Mickey Culpepper (Mickey, unfortunately, has since committed suicide). David and Mickey had been playing together but not winning enough to suit either of them, much like Bomb and I. In the early going, David and I got the best of it. We played each other every week in the weekly tournaments at Uncle Larry's. We won most of those for a while but the tide turned. David was a great passer. Before long, Bomb and Mickey owned us. They beat us every time they played us for a solid two months. I think the last time I played with David Owens was at one of the monthly tournaments at the Binary Star in Dallas that year. We lost to Bomb and Mickey in the loser's bracket and were eliminated. I was playing great and thought we should have won that match.

David and I split up and I hooked up with David Field. We used to call him Fields. He was the right partner for me. He was a great shooter and a pretty good passer. We started hitting our stride almost immediately and we tore everyone in New Orleans up.

Tornado put on a tour that year. We couldn't go to the first two tournaments but we went to the third one in Joplin.

At Joplin, we finished ninth in doubles and I finished fifth in singles. The most memorable part of that trip was the 20hr bus ride stopping at every small town along the way and ripping through the winding roads of the Ozarks at 55mph in the dead of night. It was two lane highway and there was no guard rail whatsoever. The bus driver obviously knew the road. We got there at 9:30AM with virtually no sleep and the tournament to start at noon. I remember the motel shower (A standup version with a concrete floor). When I turned on the water, the pipes cleared the ice out and sleet came out of the shower head. It was a very rude awakening.

The next tournament that year that I could play in was in New Orleans. Again, we finished ninth in doubles. Bomb and Mickey finished higher. As I remember, most of the better players were at the Tournament Soccer Nationals in Minneapolis the weekend of the New Orleans tournament. I think Mike Davenport and Jay Smith of Kansas City won this one but I am absolutely not sure. Sadly, Davenport died a short time later at another tournament of an aneurysm.

Next up was Tulsa. Again, a ninth place finish (This is getting very old) but I won the consolation tournament with Ricky Lewis (Ronnie's brother). Carl Pedersen, one of the Houston guys I hung with earlier, and a guy named Lawrence won that one. Carl had developed a squeeze pass that was very difficult to stop. He was a great passer.

Next up was Rogers. Rogers is about 50 miles south of Joplin. We finished third there. In the winner's bracket (Best of 5), we lost to the eventual champion in the fifth game on match ball (Two games each, score tied, 4-4). The goalie, who had not scored a single goal the entire match, executed a bumper to bumper long pull shot. It was a great shot. In the loser's bracket, we lost to the runner up, also on match ball.

Then came the Texas State Championship at Luv Field in Dallas. The Texas State Championship is the biggest tournament in Texas and is second only to the Nationals in prestige. Fields originally told me he wasn't going to be able to make it. I sought out a partner because I didn't just want to play. I wanted to compete for the championship. I didn't think any of the other New Orleans players would give me that chance. Ronnie Lewis had told me that Mark Snyder was also looking for a partner and that he was playing pretty well. Mark and I talked and decided to give it a shot although I think we were probably both hoping for someone better. Then, Fields tells me he can go but I'd already committed to Snyder. So, Fields hooked up with Bomb.

In the first round, we played some local team from Dallas and won in 4 games. In the second round, we faced a team from Kansas City (One of these guys had won the singles tournament in New Orleans). We lost the first two games, 5-4, each time. We jumped out 4-1 in the third game only to have them storm back to 4-4 before we won. We jumped out 4-0 in the fourth game. Again, they came back to 4-4 before we beat them. In the fifth game, we jumped out 3-0 and I called timeout. I told Mark we can't let that happen again. I called our last timeout at 4-0. We closed them out, 5-0.

In the third round, we drew Ronnie Lewis and Joe Compean. Immediately, Mark asked for a judge. Most matches are played under the honor system. You only call for a judge if someone is breaking the rules to their advantage. Mark's book on Ronnie was that he might bend the rules, particularly when things weren't going his way. I deferred to him on that since he knew tournament Ronnie a lot better than I did. And, it couldn't hurt. Ronnie and Joe were red hot. They had won the Dynamo Nationals and the Binary Star monthly tournament/calcutta. Joe had won several singles tournaments. They were expected to win this tournament. We crushed them the first two games. They won the third but we cruised in the fourth game to advance to the fourth round.

In the fourth round, we played Johnny Lott and his partner (Don't remember who he played with). We won in four games. That was the only time I ever played against Lott in a tournament. He was a big money winner on Tournament Soccer tables and was kind of famous in our world. We played some wild guys in the fifth round. I don't remember their names (I knew one of them was a former amateur boxer and I did know him then). They gave us a terrible time and took us to five games but we advanced to the sixth round, which was the last round of the winners bracket matches. We faced none other than Bomb and Fields.

In our five previous matches, I felt like I was a solid contributor but Snyder was the real force. In this match, I was the force. Bomb and Fields knew my game and I knew theirs. They could stop me from scoring but it left open the pass and that was working. Further, they were both forwards. Fields could keep the ball away from Snyder but I had a lot of success blocking him. Bomb could pretty much score on me whenever he got the ball but he couldn't keep it away from Snyder. If Snyder had been playing with anyone else, Fields would have beaten him with no help at all from his goalie. We won in four games. Now we had to wait on the losers bracket survivor.

Watching and waiting, we could see that the hottest team was Carl Pedersen and Rhett Hardin. Rhett was Ronnie's former partner and a very good player and Carl, of course, was a great passer. We were hoping Bomb and Fields would take enough out of them to make it easier on us. I think they did. This tournament that started at noon is ending now at 5AM the next morning. We hadn't played a match in about six hours. And worse, the snack bars and restaurants inside the airport had closed at midnight. All we could get was water or soft drinks out of a machine. I was cramping up. We won the match in four games. Carl had the ball a lot more than Mark but Mark was a much higher percentage shooter. The only thing I really remember about that match was the last shot. Carl's shot rimmed out of the goal and careened around the table into his own goal. We won $300 each and were Texas State Champions.

And, finally, the Nationals in November of 1977, again in Dallas. I had hoped to play with Snyder again but he up and joined the Navy. I entered with Fields. We won our first round match against some locals from Dallas. We played Ronnie Lewis and Leigh O'Quinn in the second round. Ronnie was red hot. I couldn't stop him at all. They won the first two games, 5-4, each time. We blew them away the next two games. In the fifth and final game, Ronnie and Fields were matching shot for shot. It was 3-3 and Ronnie made it 4-3. Fields missed his pass and it ended up in the back by me. I set up my shot. I did a push kick but the ball took a bad angle and I knocked the ball into my own goal. Choke City! That was the match and it was the most disappointing moment I ever had in foosball. Fields had played great and I choked. We had to play a losers bracket game immediately afterwards. We were absolutely not ready to play at that moment. We lost to a team that we would have beaten easily just about any other time. Ronnie and Leigh won the tournament. I played in a few more tournaments after that, including the Dynamo Nationals, in 1978, but foosball was starting to die out then. It has seen revivals of sorts since but I think its heyday is past.

A little bragging here but just a little. At the Texas State tournament and on another day at Popeye's (A bar, not a fried chicken retailer) in Pasadena, Texas, I had encountered the hottest new kid on the block, John Smith. He was very young but I had heard a lot about this guy's long pull shot and his passing game from all of the Texas players. He was playing with a guy named Bruce Cofer then, who I think owned Popeye's. Though it wasn't in a tournament, I had some success against him at Popeye's. Those were practice games and I don't think we were even keeping score. But, in Dallas (Can't remember if it was at Luv or at the Binary Star a day or so before the Texas State tournament), Snyder and I waxed Smith and Cofer in a practice game for a table (If you win, you keep the table and take on the paying challenger). John did not score a point. Rhett Hardin and Tony Turner, who are two of the best Texas table players ever, never won a match against me. I played Turner just once (At the 1978 Dynamo Nationals in a match I know he probably has forgotten. He played with Mark "Tuna" Neely and I was playing with Ricky Lewis. They scored the first point and we scored the next fifteen to sweep them into the losers bracket). I played Rhett a few times, once in singles (Neither of us were very good singles players). Rhett is a super nice guy. And I mentioned Johnny Lott above. No knock on these guys, they were all great players. I just had good luck against them in my limited opportunities to play them.

I'd love to hear from anyone reading this who could add to this, refresh my memory of this, or even correct me on something I might not remember correctly. I'd also like to hear from some of the guys and girls on the circuit then. I'll mention a few names or nicknames. This list is not complete or even necessarily accurate. And please forgive me and/or correct me if I spelled your name wrong. It's been a long time since I thought of some of you. And, of course, all of the girls names are maiden names. I know many of them are married now. Please contact me here.

From New Orleans: Ronnie Wroten, Jimmy Owens, David Field, Ronnie Liebrandt, John Laitenin, Denise Bizot (Heard from), Liz Trotter, Cindy Reimer, John Zoller, Jay Compton, Rick Reynolds (Heard from), Johnny Ford, Tommy Barraco, Vernon Orange, Tony Finka (Heard from), Tom Grooms, Karl "Archie" Huber (Heard from), Whitey Reimer, Larry Lott, Adrian Ramirez, Missy, Stuart Dimak, Steve Dimak, Herman Morales, Glen Guillott, Darby Russo, Rick Cagle (Heard from)

From Houston: Ronnie Lewis, Ricky Lewis, Doug Lewis, Carl Pedersen, Rhett Hardin, George Garber, Mark Snyder, Joe Compean

From Dallas: Steve Miller, Joe Dan Etherly, Kathy Black, Scott Moreland

From Tulsa: Mark Neely, Kevin Keeter, Tony Turner

From Joplin: The Whiz Kids (Rob Smith, I think, and I forget the other's name)

From Kansas City: Jay Smith, Steve Swearingen, and the guy who won the New Orleans singles tournament (Jeff something, I think)

From Salina: Mark Crowell and Marty Chase

Rob Ferrara, July 31, 2010

Just reminiscing but updating as memories return