Rob Atha (born 1986) is a
table football
Table football, known as foosball or table soccer in North America, is a tabletop game loosely based on association football. Its objective is to move the ball into the opponent's Scoring in association football, goal by manipulating rods whic ...
/
foosball
Table football, known as foosball or table soccer in North America, is a tabletop game loosely based on association football. Its objective is to move the ball into the opponent's goal by manipulating rods which have figures attached resemblin ...
player from the UK, previously ranked 1st in the world and regularly ranking in the top 5 of the
International Table Soccer Federation
The International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) is a non-profit organization based in France that promotes table soccer. The ITSF endorses soccer tables that meet requirements for international competition.
The five official tables are current ...
(ITSF) rankings.
Atha has been the number #1 ranked player in the UK since the early 2000s.
Overview
Born in 1986, Rob learned the sport at a young age at the Rainbow snooker club in his hometown of Manchester. He won his first Open Singles title at a UK ranking tournament at the age of 13. This and other early tournament successes led to Rob being dubbed the "Wonderkid".,
leading to an appearance on the BBC children's show
Blue Peter
''Blue Peter'' is a British children's television entertainment programme created by John Hunter Blair. It is the longest-running children's TV show in the world, having been broadcast since October 1958. It was broadcast primarily from BBC ...
in 1999.
He became the ITSF Men's Doubles World Champion in 2009 along with fellow UK player Joe Hamilton.
[http://Atha%20&%20Hamilton%20win%20the%20World%20Cup%20in%202009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXBW8mN49AU] Following on from this success, Rob appeared on various British TV shows including Newsround on BBC1 as well as gaining his second Blue Peter badge. During this appearance a clip was shown of his first appearance, which was made as a result of his initial exploits.
He has reached the finals of the ITSF World Cup on 3 other occasions (once again with Hamilton; once with his father Boris; and once in Singles). He has won numerous international tournaments on different tables and is cited by fooscaster Jim Stevens (the recognised 'voice of foosball') as being one of the greatest multi-table players ever to play the sport.
Rob has been sponsored by various companies such as the energy drink giant Red Bull and Heineken, being the face of their international staff table football tournament for many years. He is featured in the 2016 documentary .
See also
*
List of world table football champions
References
External links
BritfoosITSF
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atha, Rob
Table football
World champions in table football
Living people
1986 births