After reading some of the posts here I get the impression that the countless European players playing on the Tornado tour finally managed to gain enough influence and now the gear is changed in their favour. Would anyone care telling me who all those malicious Euro players are? Who's responsible for all that hatred?
BodyG,
It's not, I repeat, not a hate of Euro players, who will always be welcome for their adventuresomeness, conviviality, support, and openness at US events. It is more the over two decades long enmity between Tornado-Valley (before Brunswick took over) as its superiorly designed and manufactured table began to dominate the US foosball market, and its US players and promoters/distributors, who were basically its main market.
Tornado's durability and consistency as a product overwhelmed the then major Tournament Soccer, or TS Million Dollar Tour, which was ridden with "wildcat", barely legitimate tours that saw rampant drug abuse as was endemic everywhere anyway in the mid 80's, by very common large "under the table" cash prizes looked upon by the IRS (US Treasury) as a standard money laundering tool, and outright theft by promoters that absconded with the money and are still being hunted abroad.
Many of the TS players had started on tour and turned it into a giant party held on most US national holiday weekends, mixed with several Regional Super Events. A Golden Age, as they say. If you have ever experienced the early to mid80's in Europe, these tour events paid very well, had a roaming superparty that followed the tour all over, similar to the 90's roving hordes of weekender ravers that started in Ibiza, Spain, where English hooligans mixed with whitecollar decadents from all over Western Europe, and the super European rich and their kids, who had castles, estates and yachts at nearby Mallorca, Telerica and Telleriz.
TS dominance gave way to Dynamo, which was in turn absorbed by Tornado, which had a great product & got the overwhelming approval of promoters who ran coin-op concessions all over the US. New groups of soon-to-be-elite players started playing in arcades and sportsbar/collegiate gamerooms. Attracted by similar reasons to the tour, a newer tourgroup evolved. But this time, they'd been weaned off Dynamos into Tornado's US power foosball, as designed by Ed McCloud. This is the dominant US style today, with one major component that came along with the new Tornado ball introduced in the early 90's.
The new ball did not chip and remained smooth, allowing a new shot, the snake or rollover, to emerge, vs the older balls which had cracks, chips and craters and were basically pucks. Terry Moore, former pullshooter like most proMasters, perfected the snake attack and allowed even more power, more reliably to be included in US foosball. This loud, relatively easy to learn shot, began a new era, as almost all new foosers used this combo of pin control and palmrolling power to start a new youth movement that still rankles a lot of the old guard.
About the same time that Tornado was dominating US foos and looking towards world markets, several players started questioning Tornado's and later Valley's absolute control of the tour. Many organizations and groups were formed to give a voice to the players' needs. They wanted more say in the tour, since US players had always been foosball's money cow and customers. For obvious reasons, Tornado and Valley did not welcome or respond very well to these calls to surrender their monopoly. They were, as any business, reluctant to react, especially with cheaper Asian knockoffs and European competition as their number one worry. So the players have always had subgroups who do not trust any monopoly and speak out whenever there is any question about tables, table parts, or event management that distresses or takes advantage of the lower, non-elite players who pay for the brunt of major and regional events. Just as any democratic American should be, especially in any "unfree" market.
If you don't believe this, then Mary Moore, IFP, Brendan Flaherty, and the Warrior Table are figments of your imagination. There are ALSO players who also just want the status quo, who take Tornado-Valley's side almost the whole time, because their agenda is to internationalize and expand foosball, ASAP, no matter what. They regard any player, local or regional control similar to that of Bowling, Pool, Darts, and other leagues/hobbies/sports/games as a threat. A lot of player activists can often go overboard, of course, so the players/officials on Valley-Tornado's side will disparage and attack activists, telling them to shut up already, getting personal sometimes, WITHOUT ANY COUNTER-ARGUMENTS or reasons why this or that feature or this or that shouldn't be that unfair. Yes they are what you would typically call FASCISTS or SUPERCAPITALISTS - Anyone that tells complaining others to pipe down without any arguments or logical refutals.
Going back to your question on resentment. Players had been asking for changes to the tables for years and were ignored, with Tornado-Valley going about their own improvements and changes, confident that they had a stranglehold on the US market and also had the sanction of the ITSF. Then changes that were requested or recommended by the ITSF were basically implemented less than one year after introducing the new "fridge" Tornado, to become standard the day after Worlds. So Tornado-Valley will ignore their own market for a decade and listen to the ITSF suggestions. This is the same as the US Tennis Association, or USTA, ignoring US players and members's requests for years, then suddenly listening to the European federation and replacing all US HarTru and other hardcourts used in Open play with red clay. It is ridiculous and quite insulting to US players. If the USTA did this bonehead thing, then suddenly all major events would of course be amenable and advantageous to the 30-70 European players, but absolutely humiliating and contradictory to the thousands and thousands of USTA players.
Do you now see where this enmity is and why it's growing? Sure there are detractors of Valley-Tornado who go overboard and turn it into a personal vendetta. But the fact remains is that Valley-Tornado has been very protective and insular of its monopolistic socialist stranglehold on US Foosball, until recently, that is. I've run my own businesses, so I can't really fault them.. US foosball allowed Valley-Tornado's monopoly to grow, to they have to live with it. So there is no hate or resentment of Euro players, just the question, why make it easier for them at US events, and jack all the Americans after 20+ years of US style power foosball? And there is more admiration of Rico's example (ala Nadal and Federer) of his ability to dominate on any table or any style. Converting Tornado tables to more of a Euro style destroys the variety, destroys the diversity of world or international foosball, and alienates thinking players trying to promote US foosball with idiotic "Pipe down", "enough already", and other name-calling phrases, even on this board. No arguments or counter reasoning, just the party line. This will always lead to a lot of anger and resentment.
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