Tykkimiehet FC

Tykkimiehet FC (1054874)

Full name	Tykkimiehet Football Club
Nickname(s)	Tykärit, TFC
Founded	January 2006
Manager	Jopetshow
League	Finland, VI.604
Region	Päijät-Häme
Stadium	Vesivehmaan Highbury (Capacity 50,000)
Fan Club	Punamustat ("Red and Black", over 2000 members)
Coach	Template:Flag/FRA Maxime Petitpas
Captain	Template:Flag/FIN Riku Leimu
Youth Team
Name	Tykkipojat
Trainer	Template:Flag/FIN Artturi Härkönen
Captain	Template:Flag/FIN Antti Syväsalo
League	1 Lliga Hattrick B
All-Time Leaders
League/Cup Appearances	Template:Flag/NED Jouke Reckers, 163 (212 total)
Total Appearances	Template:Flag/SWE Holger Robertsson, 212 (89 in league/cup)
Best player (All-time, fan vote, after tenth season)	Template:Flag/NED Jouke Reckers

Tykkimiehet FC is a Finnish Hattrick club. The club plays nowadays in Finnish League VI.604. The word "Tykkimiehet" is Finnish and means "The Gunners". Club's Youth Team is called Tykkipojat, straight translation is "The Cannon Boys", as Tykkimiehet and Gunners can also mean "Cannon Men". The team celebrated its fourth anniversary on 12th of January 2010.

Youth team

Tykkimiehet FC's Youth Team is called Tykkipojat, as said before. Youth team's coach is Artturi Härkönen. There are three youth scouts, they are called Jukka Varis, Aki Laaksonen and Juho Ylikorpi. Captains are rarely permanent, as the older and more experienced players become captains, they will soon be promoted to the seniors. Tykkipojat played it's first season in a league called Slaya's Junior League. Then the team went abroad to a league called Donnykleuterschool. There Tykkipojat took the championship three times in as many seasons. After some different leagues, they joined to a league called De Beste, where they were from July 2008 to May 2009. Tykkipojat won the championship of De Beste some time ago and then they moved on to a new league with another championship and another new league.

History

Season 28

Tykkimiehet FC was founded 12.1.2006, when there was season 28 ongoing in Finland. Tykkimiehet arrived to it's league, IX.175, after one game. Tykkimiehet finished sixth on their first season.

Season 29

Though the team was only sixth in it's league last season, it promoted to eighth division to a league named VIII.1130. That was because of Hattrick's bot cleanup and their relegation to bottom divisions (and thus some bottom division human managers got promoted). The team had improved a lot from it's starting season and finished third.

Season 30

On season 30 Tykkimiehet tried to promote to seventh division. After long battling against other teams, Tykkimiehet finished only second and failed to promote. There were fierceful battles against a future champion Vilupuron Vetäjät, first was 1-2 victory for Vilupuro and Tykkimiehet managed to play away draw with their new players bought to the clash. That still wasn't enough for the promotion. Fans almost got bored to hanging in same league for so long, but the future seemed better...

Season 31

Finally on season 31 Tykärit managed to promote to seventh division after exciting matches. This included a horrible 3-2 defeat against another promotion candidate FC Jäce in Christmas Eve. This defeat started TFC's unluckyness on holidays and their Eves.

Season 32

First, Tykkimiehet tried to just avoid the relegation and maybe reach bit more higher, but with a great surprise, Tykkimiehet won the championship and promoted immediately to sixth division. Many new players had bought and when the next season started, the team was ready to face the first big challenge in sixth division.

Season 33

The Club accomplished it's minimum objective and stayed clear out of the relegation. Tykkimiehet finished fifth place in a league called VI.604.

Season 34

Second season in VI.604 was harder than the first: there wasnt't a clearly weaker team and a bot team like last season. Still Tykkimiehet stayed in its league and finished sixth.

Season 35

The Club finished sixth again, but the place in the league was bit clear already, because there were two bot teams. Tykkimiehet failed to climb up higher than sixth.

Season 36

Season 36 seemed easier at the start: there were two bot teams and only one team was clearly better. The Club's aim was to finish fifth, but sometimes even the third place was possible. But Tykkimiehet lost some important matches in the end and finished "only" fourth. The Cup performance (fifth round) was great, though. In the middle of the season the coach, Aiman Sye, who had been in the job since September 2007, retired and Simon Bunni took the control.

Season 37

The start of the season 37 was excellent: Tykkimiehet made a record by being the leader after three rounds. Before that, Tykkimiehet was fourth after two rounds at best. Later, Tykkimiehet suffered an embarassing 4-0 defeat to that time's eighth placed team Amigos Jugando al Fútbol (which still stayed out of the relegation). But some time after that Tykkimiehet managed to win the both of the "monster teams", Ruanda Marmotas and FC Perätila. That time, TFC was still fighting even for the title, but they underperformed again and drew to Amigos. Second place was still possible, but Marmotas won Perätila at the last round and kept TFC at third place. It was still a great season for The Club.

Season 38

Tykkimiehet FC's tenth season was expected to be tougher than in last year, as promoted teams were a lot better than relegated ones, but they still got the championship. That was probably because Tykkimiehet had also improved a lot from previous season. Tykkimiehet held the first position since round two despite a defeat against Ruanda Marmotas. In week 12 Tykkimiehet won Perätila and Marmotas lost to promoted FC Ruput and so TFC almost assured the championship. It was finally secure week after with a victory against FC Hämy. TFC then lost to FC Huikka in last round and even 10-0 to Tommy's House in qualification with reserves. Promotion was not very wise in that point according to the manager.

Tykkimiehet managed to get to the fourth round of the Cup of Finland and thus got a good enough performance in it. Tykkimiehet sold their star keeper Javier Giudice before ninth league match, but his replacement Johan Mellgren got injured badly in a friendly match and the second goalkeeper Mauno Ståhl had to play in tough matches on weeks 9 to 12.

Season 39

Season 39 was a disappointment for the fans, as Tykkimiehet finished only third. Cup went pretty well with surviving to the fifth round, but league performances weren't near the ones that were expected. There were many reasons for that, including the many injuries of star defender Viliam Šúst and just pure unluckiness. But in Season 40 Tykkimiehet will hunt for revenge...

Season 40

The Club was disappointed when they heard that last season's champions FC Perätila got promoted to the toughest Finnish fifth division, thus having a team from that same league, Myllymäki Rangers got relegated to VI.604. Rangers were largely hyped before the season and they were seen as an invincible team. However, Tykkimiehet defeated them on Vesivehmaan Highbury 10th of October 3-0, being one of the greatest wins in club's history. Joy wasn't everlasting though: after an excellent run in the league Tykkimiehet faced a terrible month known as The Black November: four losses in four matches, one of them being against Myllymäki Rangers and other three one way or another unlucky. Even the second place was in danger, but finally TFC managed to finish second as they tried to before the season. Rangers outran Tykkimiehet by nine points, though.

Season 41

Although Tykkimiehet started season 40 well, it sooner or later became obvious that Myllymäki Rangers were too hot to handle. So the expectations for new season were high. Club called LeKa relegated from fifth division, and they were of course a lot easier team to win than Rangers last season, but Tykkimiehet failed to take the title and finished second once again. LeKa defeated Tykkimiehet in the first round, and after that Tykkimiehet started to chase LeKa with only three points behind, aiming to take the lead in the last round. Unfortunately Tykkimiehet lost two other matches, against newly-promoted Las Pelotas de la Ciudad and the old rival FC Huikka, so the victory over LeKa in the last round wasn't enough.

Season 42

The longest-serving manager of The Club's history, Simon Bunni, was replaced at the beginning of the new season by French Maxime Petitpas. Petitpas started his journey in style and trashed opponents one after another.

Famous Players

Hall of Fame Players

Tykkimiehet FC has an own Hall of Fame, where some retired TFC legends may come after their career. There are currently ten players in Hall of Fame, two of them being former coaches Ludovic Kondo and Simon Bunni.

• Paavo Heiskanen

Heiskanen was the first player of Tykkimiehet that got promoted to the Hall of Fame. He started his career in Tykkimiehet and never went to another club. On first seasons of Tykkimiehet, Heiskanen was a vital link in the team's defence. He also made some great goals, usually with his head. His 40th birthday was in June and on that day he played his last match in Senior Reserves. Now he just coaches reserve teams and is the assistant coach of the senior team.

• Jori Pöntinen

Pöntinen retired and went to Hall of Fame a day after Paavo Heiskanen. Pöntinen also played as a defender, usually as a full-back. He scored lots of goals and even one hat-trick despite his position and was one of the fan's favourites. He played totally 40 matches.

• Petri Laru

Laru wasn't great player, but still almost the best of the best: Laru is known as a very "funny" person and did things like selling Hot-Dogs during the game, being in the line-up at the same time! Even opponent team's fans clapped, or laughed, to him when the line-up was announced before the game. Nowadays he doesn't play at all (Thank God!) but sells Hot-Dogs near the pitch before matches and at half-time.

• Ludovic Kondo

Kondo was the second coach of Tykkimiehet. He bought many solid players to positions where they were needed. He was also formidable tactician, but he still not managed to promote the team to the seventh division.

• Valter Zeba

Zeba was first foreign Hall of Fame -player. That Croatian superstriker scored 23 goals in 48 matches. Many of those goals were important in eighth and also seventh division. Fans think that Zeba was one of the most important players in season 31, when Tykkimiehet promoted to VII and it's history changed forever. Zeba never was a supreme dribbler, runner or playmaker, but his inherent will and ability to score and make the difference in big matches was greatly regared by the fans.

• Iikka Pikkarainen

Along with Laru, Pikkarainen's glorius matches are all friendlies. He was the first player of the Club who scored a Hat-Trick. This game was a friendly against ZC Kukkila, and this match is probably the legendariest match in TFC's history. To see why, check it out in Hattrick (80462466) or see below from this page. Pikkarainen has also scored one league goal.

• Henrik Fogelholt

Fogelholt was promoted to the Hall of Fame after he announced to end his career. He started his career in Tykkimiehet when the whole club was formed and ended it in May 2008. The Finnish wingback with Swedish descent also scored 21 goals and played 115. Even so he wasn't as legendary as Heiskanen, Pöntinen or Zeba and not as funny as Laru, Pikkarainen or Kissa, but he still is a honorable member of the Hall of Fame.

• Toni Kissa

Kissa belongs to the same category as Laru and Pikkarainen as a legendary Friendly match player and humoristic attitude. Most important thing about him is that his surname Kissa means "Cat" in English. Mostly because of his name he was bought from Lamminpää Predators in September 2006 for 1000 euros. He played 42 matches, most of them friendlies, and he didn't score any league or cup goals.

• Joeli Odber-De-Baubeta

• Teemu Rautapää

Rautapää was bought to TFC with Toni Kissa in September 2006. The word 'Kissa' means 'Cat' in Finnish, but 'Rautapää' means 'Ironhead'. Nobody can't disclaim that those 17-year old youngsters were bought because of their name, but Rautapää had good dribbling abilities and his name wasn't just a name: many players were hurt after an aerial battle with Rautapää in friendlies. He was never a top class player, only a thrusted warrior in friendlies, and his injury in one of them was the final thing that confirmed his retirement and new place in Hall of Fame. Rautapää played in 59 matches, only seven of them being competitive games, and he also scored one goal in a league match.

• Jan Granberg

It is said that Granberg has least fame of HoF players, and that is mostly true. Granberg played in Tykkimiehet and its youth teams since 15 years old, and scout Jori Pöntinen offered him a professional contract in August 2008. He played just 15 friendlies and one qualification match, and when a new place to Hall of Fame opened, he decided to go there as there weren't other candidates.

• Toni Vihijoki

Vihijoki hasn't got a lot of fame either. He played loyally in Tykkipojat for few seasons, then being a fringe player in the senior team for a long time. Vihijoki was a capable player, with the ability to play everywhere in the pitch including between the posts. He played in just a one competition match, but in 20 friendlies as well. He went to Hall of Fame in the end of November 2009.

• Simon Bunni

Non-HoF retired legends

Some legends of The Club have been sold to another club and then retired, or retired in Tykkimiehet without entering to the Hall of Fame. They are not in Hall of Fame but still on hearts of the fans.

• Charles Forjaz

Forjaz was the first player who reached the excellent skill, in playmaking. He was a dominant player in TFC's midfield for many seasons. After those many unforgettable performances, he was sold because a new midfield star was arising - Jouke Reckers. Unfortunately, Forjaz's new team quitted Hattrick after some time. Nowadays, Forjaz plays for TFC's Senior Reserve team. He was selected to the best player of Tykkimiehet FC in fan vote before season 36.

• Miika Hannonen

Hannonen was the original goalkeeper of Tykkimiehet and kept that position for some time. Then he became a backup keeper. The first team goalkeepers came and went, but Hannonen kept his position as a backup. But this time also ended, when a new goalkeeper from Tykkipojat, Juho Tolpanniemi, was promoted to the seniors and Hannonen was sold. Then his team quitted Hattrick and like Forjaz, Hannonen came back to his most memorable team to play in Senior Reserves.

• Joonas Tupamäki

Tupamäki was one of the original players of Tykkimiehet and a tough member of the team's defence line. This line, Fogelholt-Tupamäki-Heiskanen-Pöntinen, was also compared with Arsenal's legendary defence line Winteburn-Adams-Bould-Dixon. Later, Tupamäki's skills just weren't good enough and he retired without entering the Hall of Fame like many others who have retired in TFC.

• Jaakko Sunden

Sunden is considered as the best Tykkimiehet FC youth pull ever. He was a top-class winger and midfielder as he was promoted to senior team as 19 years old. Couple of days later, 12th September 2006, he was sold with 396 000 euros, which was clearly the biggest transfer fee in Tykkimiehet on that time. But accidentally, after some seasons, his team retired and so did Sunden. It was a total disaster in TFC fan's opinions. Nowadays he plays in Tykkimiehet FC Reserve team sometimes and best professional TFC youth player is Olli-Pekka Ämmänkoski.

• Hannu Repo

Repo was The Man in the midfield from the second half of season 31 to the end of season 33. He played alongside many TFC midfield legends from Charles Forjaz to Alex Évora and Jouke Reckers. Later Santiago Majewski took his place, but he was still one of the legends. It was very sad that Repo's team and so he himself retired, but then went to Tykkimiehet FC Senior Reserves squad.

• Juan Luis Sanz

Sanz is considered to be the third best goalkeeper all-time in The Club. Javier Giudice got his second place only a short time ago. Sanz was the second starting goalkeeper in TFC after Miika Hannonen and led Tykkimiehet to its first title, VIII.1130. championship in season 31. He leaved the club before the championship of VII.625, but he played 12 clean sheets and lots of more memorable matches. His post-TFC club quitted Hattrick and so Sanz's game was also over.

Legends still playing in The Club

Of course some of the greatest are legends when they are still living, i.e. playing still in Tykkimiehet.

• Holger Robertsson

Holger Robertsson is a true legend, no Charles Forjaz or even Petri Laru can be compared to him. This Swedish striker was bought in the first days of Tykkimiehet for a huge 70 000 euro transfer fee (at the time some fans thought that he was very overpriced...) as 18 years old. Ludovic Kondo trained him to a midfielder, too. He became an important player, but some seasons later he lost his place in starting eleven. Still he managed to have some appearances in a season, and soon he was the first player to have 100 appearances in Tykkimiehet. In November 2008, he played his 150th match in league defeat against FC Perätila. It was an incredible achievement and somehow sharply half of his 150 matches were friendlies and another half league and cup matches! Holger has since got his 200th appearance too, but he rarely gets first-team football anymore. He is still hunting for the hundreth competitive appearance.

• Jouke Reckers

A certain Dutch 17-year old teen called Jouke Reckers was starting his professional career on May 2006. Three days later he was sold from his original club to Finland, to an ascending club called Tykkimiehet FC with a transfer fee of 3000 euros. Now, 12 seasons and over three years later, Reckers, 29, having multipled his value by almost 1000 times, is a midfield star in Tykkimiehet, perhaps the best player in the whole team. He has improved incredibly on his stay and he has played 190 matches in The Club and so leading the league/cup caps list. Some great things are influenced with so small factors, and Reckers is a very good example of that.

• Alessandro Wyssmann

Wyssmann has been in The Club since June 2007. He was 20 years old that time, but he has been a first-team star since the beginning. He has also grown up as a player and a man during his long career in TFC, and he played his hundredth match in The Club in March 2009. Only five players have done it before him. Three months later he achieved even rarer milestone: hundreth competitive match as the second player to do that. He is trailing almost 50 matches behind Jouke Reckers for all caps, but he has still played just 17 competitive matches less than the Dutchman. That gives him an ultimate lead for stat concerning competitive matches out of all matches (players over 80 matches only) as 125 of his 141 matches so far (88,6%) were in league or in Cup.

• Markku Nisula

Striker Nisula played in Tykkipojat for a long time before joining the senior squad and getting sold soon after in March 2008 for 17 000 euros. Nisula made an excellent career abroad, scoring lots of goals and even few hat-tricks in three clubs. When Nisula was transferlisted by his third club Juventus "ZS" in December 2009, Tykkimiehet decided to sign the former homegrown youngster for 4 000 euros. Nisula, now 26, is a backup for the first team, but he has got some league and cup appearances too.

• Jarno Sonninen

Sonninen followed the footsteps of Markku Nisula by rejoining Tykkimiehet. Sonninen started his career all the way back in spring 2006. He became a useful player and a fan favourite. He still didn't manage to get a regular spot, so he was sold in November 2006. He played in three club, two of them in Romania, and rejoined Tykkimiehet a lot later in May 2010. He made a stunning comeback by scoring in his new debut against Ilpoinen 28ers under the eyes of the delighted fans of Tykkimiehet.

Legends playing elsewhere

Some great players have been sold in spite of their reputation and praise of the fans. Information coming soon...

• Sami Kauhanen

• Arvo Kojo

• Alex Evora

• Hector Denis

• Rãzvan Galos

• Vidas Mergiunas

• Marco Zanzi

• Ricky Ramos

• Santiago Majewski

• Javier Giudice

• Pietro Gartsman

• Jon Caiger

Legendary matches and events

Tykkimiehet FC - ZC Kukkila

This friendly match is the favourite of many Tykkimiehet fans. There happened many legendary things: first, Tykkimiehet scored 7 beautiful goals. Then, Joeli Odber-De-Baubeta, one of the greatest players all-time, head-butted the opponent and was sent off. Remember that Zinedine Zidane's head butt was about two months after that... Also Iikka Pikkarainen scored three goals and a Hat-Trick, first time in The Club's history. Last thing was that Petri Laru almost played a clean sheet, but one player called Antonello Spinola made a mistake on 86th minute and so Laru just couldn't make a save. A month later Spinola was sold...

Jorvinpallo - Tykkimiehet FC

This game was played in the 12th round of season 32, TFC's only season in seventh division. Tykkimiehet fought hard to promote to the sixth division, but was 1-0 behind against Jorvinpallo, one of the promotion candidates, still in 70th minute. The team's coach Aiman Sye was frustated and went to the toilet and then to buy some beer near the stadium. When he came back, he saw that Jorvinpallo was going to make a kick-off. "What the hell is going on", Sye said, "did we equalise?" Assistant coach Paavo Heiskanen answered negatively. "What then?" Sye asked and was very nervous. Then he looked at the scoreboard and noticed that TFC's striker Rãzvan Galos, who also was the league's best goalscorer that season, had scored two goals in two minutes. Sye gone crazy and did some hilarious dancing moves. The game was won by Tykkimiehet and those three points maybe decided the promotion battle for Tykkimiehet.

The All-Star Day

In every season break, Tykkimiehet organises an event called The All-Star Day. It's usually in Satuday, week 15 but on last season break it was in week 16. In The All-Star Day, players of Tykkimiehet FC play some All-Stars matches like First Team against Second Team, Finnish players against Foreigners and so on. Later on the day and sometimes in Sunday, the TFC leadership announces the best players of Tykkimiehet in each category, such as best goalkeeper, most valuable player and best signing. The All-Star Day's events are always reported to Clubhouse or nowadays to HT-Arena (in Finnish).

Stadium

Tykkimiehet FC's Stadium is called Vesivehmaan Highbury. It means Vesivehmaa's Highbury, Vesivehmaa is the name of The Club's home village. Stadium's capacity is 50000. It was first 12000-seater, then enlarged by 2000 seats. In November 2007 the stadium was enlarged to a 27580-seater and its current capacity has been present since June 2009.

See Also

• User:Jopetshow
• Tykkimiehet FC/Petri Laru
• Tykkimiehet FC/Joeli Baubeta
• [http://www.ht-arena.com/tykkimiehet_fc/ Official Website (mostly in Finnish)