The Picturesque City of Winterthur
Firstly I apologise for a such a poorly punned title. I did consider alternatives, but the play on
Hot Chocolate’s ‘It started With a Kiss’ just wouldn’t work. ‘It started with
an offer of a free Subbuteo team in a football magazine’ just doesn’t quite cut
it.
So what am I going on about? Subbuteo! Despite being aware of
Subbuteo from a very early age, being more into cricket than football meant I
was more obsessed with obtaining Test Match than any flick-to-kick related
products (and for £7.99 from Goldies toy shop, Test Match would be mine –
replete with signed photo of the then England team... Botham, Gower et al. Now
all that was required was some friends to play with... oh well, back in the
box!)
As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I had seen lots of Subbuteo
items in the windows of the toy shop in town, but even when I first became
beholden to football, it still never appealed. It just seemed way too nerdy and
serious. Yes they had lovely shiny
trophies, but one didn’t need to love Subbuteo to desire those. I'd already dipped my toe into the world of table football a few months earlier when I purchased an all white team from the bargain bin at that same toy shop, but other than drawing my own kits on the blank plastic kit canvas, I still wasn't really getting it.
Two factors combined to change my stance:
- There were pretty much
no other football toys out there at the time (Striker had disappeared a few
years earlier and wouldn’t be available again until the '90s)
- An offer of a free Subbuteo team in Shoot! Magazine.
Yes, a FREE Subbuteo team! Which one would I get? As the advert
clearly stated, ‘You could even get your favourite team!’ The excitement!!!
The form was filled in, the requisite Stamped Addressed
Envelope (how I miss that phrase) included and the standard 28 days for
delivery was waited. Finally, one
day after school, a package had arrived. A package that had seen better days by the look of it; my SAE a shadow
of its former self. Whether it had suffered some rain damage followed by a
letterbox-induced shredding or had just been used as a football for the posties
at the local sorting office I shall never know. Nor indeed did I care for I
was possibly about to embark on my full-on Subbuteo journey. I tore open the parcel, excitement building... who could it be, who could
it be???
Well... you know the answer to that. Kinda gave it away in
the title, really.
So...Winterthur... Who???
Their home colours are all red. Only, they weren’t back then. Their home colours were white shorts and
socks and white shirts with, if the Subbuteo figure painters are to be believed, three vertical gashes to the upper body. I’m
assuming they were supposed to be uniform stripes, but the ones on my figures
definitely looked like the result of some coordinated machete attack. Guess that would explain the blank stares on
their plastic faces. The pic below is from an eBay listing (not mine - I’m holding on to my beloved Winterthur!) Mine came in more modern Subbuteo packaging (landscape
layout, not vertical), but the figures are identical.
The Walking(?) Wounded
I now had two complete teams and, along with some cheap balls from the same bargain bin as before, could fully immerse myself in the murky waters of Subbuteo. Now all I needed was a pitch...and maybe some corner flags...and obviously a ref and linesman. A scoreboard would be quite useful too. Oh dear. In one fell swoop my interest had gone from passing to 'collector'. 0 to Geek in under 5 seconds...
And so yet another expensive pastime came into existence. One
I shall delve into in greater detail in future, but for now, Merry Christmas people
of Winterthur... and please, get to a hospital – those wounds need serious
attention!
One of the most popular posts on our website is one of the most unexpected successes. Back in September 2012, I reviewed a largely overlooked piece of memorabilia called the Esso Collection of Football Club Badges. Coming from the same people that brought you the England World Cup Coin Collection, this was a set of football insignia (made from foil) available individually from Esso petrol stations whenever a tankful of fuel was purchased.
The unlikely tale of a kids football team playing a Flightless Bird XI from the Antarctic and losing – in humiliating fashion. Having presumably exhausted all other options where local teams were concerned, the children in red-and-white stripes played off on a never-more-Seventies muddy pitch in front of a baying crowd that strongly support the birdy outfit (judging by their hats and scarves). The kids never stood a chance. The referee and various members of the crowd were heavily influenced by the allure of chocolaty Penguin bars and before you knew it, our feathery friends had put the ball in the back of the net. Cue rapturous scenes and a guard of honour as the winners waddled their way off the p-p-p-pitch. Exciting stuff.
Since I first bought a copy of Shoot! for 42p (a price rise
of 2 pence on the previous week’s issue I found out later...scandalous!), I
have always been drawn to the adverts section near the back of football
magazines. The promise of football-related goodies, often in full colour, tempting me all these years. 
