History of the Marbles Tournaments in Central Europe
By: Bedrich Omacka
Submitted: 2010-02-11 17:55:19 | Word Count: 527
Marbles tournaments are very popular in the central Europe in the last years. Many tournaments are held in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Some tournaments are also played in Germany. This article will reveal the history of the tournaments in this area.
In 1998 three guys in the city of Kralupy nad Vltavou got the idea to organize a serie of four tournaments. The serie was quite successful and many people liked the idea. A year later the same guys came with the idea to establish a new sport federation which will coordinate the organization of the marbles tournaments around the country. So in August 1999 the Czech Marbles Federation was established.
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In the same year was German federation (Deutches Murmelrat) established. The Czech players had no idea about that and in the end of the year 2001 they started to learn about marbles tournaments in the internet. It was a big surprise for them that there are also tournaments in other countries.
In the beginning of the 2002 the first Czech international tournament called Czech Open was organized in Prague. Players from the Czech Republic and Germany participated in this sport event. In the next years the tradition of the Czech Open tournament continued and it was visited by players from Slovakia, Netherland or North Africa.
In 2005 the first World Marbles Championship in individual hole game was organized. It became a tradition to organize this event at the end of July every year. In the first years it took place at Strelecky ostrov, an island in the center of Prague. Later it was moved to the nice park on the hill called Petrin in the same city.
During these years marble playing became quite popular in the Czech Republic. New marble clubs was established and more than 50 tournaments took place in many cities every year. In these years started the Slovak marbles players to organize their own tournaments and also created the Federation of Slovak Marbles Players. They organize 3 international tournaments in the city of Velke Levare every year and also many local events. The first tournament take place every May, the second on the first Saturday in August and the last one in first September day.
Because the organizers of the world marbles championship wanted to popularize this sport around the world they decided to start a World Marbles Federation project. This projects invites people from all countries to start marbles tournaments in their countries and establish their own national marbles federation. People who are interested in organizing marbles tournaments in their countries can see instructional photos and videos on the website or join facebook group designated to help them.
The World Marbles Federation project started at the end of the year 2009. It is too early to rate the results now, however, there were some responses from European, Asian and South American countries during first months of running this project. Only the feature will show if there will be enough countries interested to play together and establish the World Marbles Federation.
