Biography:

Having played college foos from 1996-1997 this provided a strong grounding in the basics required to play the game, and an early Geoff Brice tournament at the Pellican in Stroud in 1997 saw me qualify through the groups and reach the quarter finals against much more established opposition.

However, I subsequently went to university and as foos was hard to come by, a six year hiatus followed. It wasn't until mid 2003 that I discovered a local scene in Portsmouth where weekly tournaments took place and I decided to buy a table to practice. Looking for a good table (like the tables from college, something with red and blue men) I found a slick glass block foot FAS and snapped it up, I was ready to start improving my game and was almost immediately the guy to beat down the pub.

I discovered a group of players who played at the King Alfred in Southampton. These were mostly solid UK Semi pro Tornado players with one pro player. Playing weekly at the King Alfred taught me the rudimentary foosball tactics and strong mindset required to win games and take my game to the next level. Most of all it showed me that Tornado players developed better skills than Garlando players and were much harder to beat, I wanted to become a good Tornado player. I quickly discovered my FAS was a fairly poor table and the benefit I derived from practicing on it had soon peaked.

A combination of the Alfred players and the Britfoos forum opened my eyes to a whole new world of foos; national tournaments, player forums, advice, venue details, rankings and video clips. I wanted to jump straight in and although having played against much better players at the King Alfred I wasn't afraid of this higher standard of play and was convinced that my natural ability would see me through. 

My first national tournament was at Oxford in 2003 and if I remember rightly I won just one or two matches, but much more importantly I saw shots to go away and practice and I knew that with some practice and experience I could beat these players.

I continued to play at the King Alfred and gradually immersed myself in the national scene discovering classic tournaments like the Floatel where you really get to know people and make friends.

Throughout 2004 I formed a strong doubles partnership with another up and coming player and soon we were beating strong London teams. We reached Open Doubles Finals in smaller national tournaments at the Black Horse and Grange pubs in London and won semi pro doubles at the Floatel in 2004. Obviously the more established players didn't like losing and I soon came to realise that tight games can easily turn ugly, but this just spurred me on and ingrained a fighting spirit into my game. I went to the Palace Hotel tournament in Ireland where I met some of the best German Tornado players and this gave me my first taste of the international standard - they were a bit good! 

I realised my early novice error, sold my FAS and bought a second hand Tornado for about £500. This was the best move I ever made and I saw my game improve massively. I began travelling further afield to play, regularly visiting the Bush in Bristol and the Black Horse in London as well as playing twice a week in Southampton round a mates house and at the King Alfred to get as much table time as I could. I was soon given the nick name of 'The Slag' as I was 'playing around' so much! However, this gave me the confidence to start playing up front in doubles and I soon realised success in the forward position winning Semi Pro Doubles at the Floatel in early 2005.

Having established myself as one of the better defenders in the country, the UK no.2 asked me to team up for the largest UK tournament in years, The Crawley Garlando European Open. As a European event , the rankings were adjusted to reflect international ability and so all (bar 1) UK players were eligible for the Semi Pro event. This basically made the semi pro event a UK Open event and so ranks as my first real success in a major UK Open competition, narrowly beating another very strong team in the final to win. With a large crowd gathered and the final match filmed I really felt the pressure and was so relieved to see the last ball go in for the win. This was an important experience and prepared me for many more finals to come.

2006 saw me establish myself as one of the top UK players on both Garlando and Tornado, I became a UK Pro Master on both tables and was selected to represent the UK at the 2006 Foosball World Cup in Hambourg. This was an awesome experience. The pressure of these matches was unequalled anywhere in my life, you weren't just playing for yourself or your team, but your country. Seeing how the best players in the world handled themselves under such pressure was also fascinating and made me realise how much experience these guys have to be able to play so well under such conditions. This experience really helped me mature as a player, in the early years I used to feel quite nervous, since the world cup in 2006 I have had no problems relaxing even in the finals of big competitions with large crowds watching.

I began to get really interested in the international scene and over the next two years attended three US tournaments (including the Tornado Worlds in Vegas), one German tournament, one Belgium tournament (The Eurosoccer worlds) and one Swiss tournament (the Roberto Sport worlds).

With this experience I realised I still had (and have) so much to do to improve. That said the UK tournament scene has improved dramatically over the last five years as well, and now in 2008 the top UK players are stronger than they have ever been, making it a superb place for new players to learn the game.

I am now thrilled to be representing Great Britain at the Nantes World Cup in 2009, and with a much stronger team than in 2006 feel we have a good chance of going at least one further than last time.