How Swede it is for world pub champs Flynn’s

By Pierce O’Reilly

The Flynn’s Inn soccer team arrived back from Sweden recently with a bit more than sore heads. The Queens lads also had in their possession the Carlsberg World Pub Soccer Trophy. Representing the United States in the tournament, the New York lads took the competition by storm, beating teams from Ireland, UK, Sweden and Denmark.

The home side earned their European trip last month when they defeated San Francisco’s Blackthorn Tavern in the U.S. final, which was played at Hofstra University. Along the way they defeated 16 other New York contenders.

The champagne popped and the cameras clicked at Flynn’s in Sunnyside all last week as the celebrations continued in real soccer pub style.

"It was a fabulous weekend," Kevin Flynn, owner of the establishment, said. "We partied, played and performed in style."

Coach Paul McElroy and manager Mark Hopper had their troops out of the pubs before daybreak every morning. This was the first time the U.S had a team in contention.

"We did everything right," Flynn said. "This was a pub soccer competition and we played out hearts out. Admittedly we were always a bit slow to start, but when the cobwebs were dusted down, the lads played some outstanding football."

It was a weekend full of incidents — missing buses, being stopped at immigration, frolics, arrests, little sleep and lots of jet lag.

Playing four of the best pub teams in the world, they scored three goals to win two and tie two to reach the final.

The final, played against Pusterviksbaren, the Swedish champions, was played at the Ullevi Stadium. Home of Euro ’92. The Irish lads they played with panache. Jay Palmer had pulled of some stunning saves to keep them in the game early on and then Jesse Van Saun lobbed the Swedish keeper for the winning goal.

The crowd exploded, "We are the Champions" blasted from the intercom a few minutes later. The Irish lads held on for a very sweet, if sore, victory.

Flynn’s Inn: Kevin and Ann-Marie Flynn, Paul McElroy, Mark Hopper, Jay Palmer, Kevin Daley, Penny Camphene, Ben Hickey, John O’Hagan, Anton Diver, Bobby Davies, Omar Chavez, Danny Parkin, Mark Reeves, David Pettit, Jesse Van Saun.

Maney matters at Wimbledon

Roughly 27,000 kilograms of English strawberries and 7,000 liters of dairy cream are consumed every year during the Wimbledon tennis championships. Back in 1877, the inaugural year of the first Lawn Tennis Championships, I doubt if such extremes of consumption were reached. Whatever about the strawberries, cream was definitely not the order of the day. Wimbledon, like most other sporting competitions with an international dimension, has gone from mere sports competition to a huge commercial venture.

Money matters and those who disagree are sidestepped in style. In that opening year, spectators paid one shilling to watch the final. Today, they pay between $50 and $500, depending on what you want to see. The tickets for center court for the last four days of the competition are pre-sold, so don’t even ask for one.

By the turn of the century, Wimbledon had assumed an international character and in 1905 May Sutton of the United States became the first Champion from overseas to win the Ladies’ Singles title. She repeated her success in 1907, the year when Norman Brookes of Australia became the first Gentlemen’s Singles champion from overseas. International links meant big bucks and since that year only two players from the UK, Arthur Gore and Fred Perry, have managed to win the event. Wimbledon was covered on TV for the first time in 1937 and revenue from the tournament helped establish it as the No. 1 tennis tournament in the world.

So important are the big players to Wimbledon today that they are seeded in different groups to prevent them from meeting in the early rounds. Pete Sampras won’t meet Andre Agassi or Pat Rafter until the playoffs. It doesn’t pay to play any sooner.

The total prize money for the championships has gone from the mediocre to mad. Prize money for the Championships this year will be £8,497,360, an increase of 5.5 percent from 2000. The Gentlemen’s Champion will receive £500,000, a humble increase from the first professional paycheck in 1968, when £2,000 was presented to the victor. Before 1968, only amateurs were allowed to compete. Maybe it was better then. A few hundred watched Wimbledon at the turn of the century. Last year, it attracted an attendance of more than 450,000 people over the two weeks with millions more watching from the comfort of their arm chairs.

On opening day, all the money in the world couldn’t help Martina Hingis, the world No. 1 and top seed at Wimbledon, from falling from her perch. Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain beat her in the first round. Pascal produced a decisive victory by 6-4 6-2 in 65 minutes to end Hingis’s hopes of regaining the form that took her to her only Wimbledon title in 1997. It was a devastating blow to the world’s No. 1, who was left to rue her second first round defeat in three years.

Pete Sampras made a confident start to the defense of his Wimbledon men’s title when he defeated the Madrid-based Spaniard Francisco Clavet in straight sets in one hour, 46 minutes. Sampras has not been troubled since. The U.S tennis king is seeking his eighth Wimbledon championship and fifth in a row. On a hot afternoon he struck 20 aces, won 90 percent of his first serves and maintained his streak of not having lost in Wimbledon’s first round for 11 successive years.