On Saturday October 3, 2009, the Southern California Subbuteo Club played host to players from two other Subbuteo clubs for the Carl Nielsen Memorial Challenge.  Anders Bruhl Hansen, Jesper Staal Nielsen, and Kristian Staal Nielsen represented the Lega Liga Subbuteo Club of Odense, Denmark, and ex-SCSC regular Ric Rivas and his wife Seow Yin made the journey from Tucson, Arizona to take part.  The Rivases were previously members of the Lions Subbuteo Club, Singapore.

The event was deemed a "challenge" rather then a tournament so that everyone could play the members of the other clubs, rather than the people in their own club.

The Danes were so much better than everyone else winning seven of their eight games, including four "mercy rule" victories. The eighth game was a tie between Hansen and the SCSC’s Wayne Smith. The "mercy rule" stops the game when one of the players reaches a four goal lead over their opponent.

Ric found it hard to keep up with his former club mates after a long lay off from playing. He lost by three goals to Dominic Hutchinson, and by a single goal to Simon Hutchinson. Seow Yin only played one game, in which she was "mercy ruled" by the older Hutchinson.

And why did we name this event after Carl Nielsen?  Nielsen was born in a small village to the south of Odense, and died on October 3 1931 making the day of the Challenge the 78th anniversary of his demise.

All the results and a full report can be found on the Carl Nielsen Memorial Challenge page on the SCSC’s website.