Chris O's Festive 5 - Subbuteo Christmas Presents

I was rather lucky, really. During my childhood, Christmas always delivered some wonderful presents to me every year, some of which were on the list I'd made, some of which weren't. I was never left dissatisfied and my parents, though never awash with money in the bank, always ensured I didn't go without.

I always wrote a list every year without fail, as many of us did as kids. In my mind, it was written to Santa because it was he, after all, that popped down the chimney and placed our presents in front of the tree on Christmas night. The fact that our chimney was blocked up and had an electric fire where a real one should have been might have told me it was actually my parents that were supplying the presents every year, but yet for some reason the penny never dropped.

Perhaps I didn't care. The sheer thought that you could write a list of items, hand it over to someone and expect to receive most of them a few days later pre-dated my Argos experience by several years, but it seemed to work brilliantly. If I do say so myself, I was always hugely grateful for the things that did arrive on December 25th, even if there were a few notable absences.

And yet for all that, I look back now and wonder what I could have received if only I'd put more thought into making my list. Take Subbuteo, for instance. I loved playing that iconic game of 'flick-to-kick' between the ages of 9 to 13, and yet I don't recall specifically asking for a Subbuteo-related present when the festive season arrived.

Granted, I had a nice collection of Subbuteo stuff anyway, but, well, you know... a bit more wouldn't have gone amiss. So what would I have asked for if I'd had the presence (or is that 'presents'?) of mind to write it on my Christmas list? I'm glad you asked, because here are the five Subbuteo items I'd loved to have unwrapped on Christmas Day many years ago...

1. Tango footballs (61205)

You can't play Subbuteo without a football, so it was lucky that the makers provided a wide variety for you to choose from. And boy, did I ever... I started off with the basic white and orange ones from my Club Edition set before moving on to the Tournament balls, the 'FIFA' balls, the Ariva balls and also a fine set of Mitre Deltas.

Yet the ones that I really needed - sorry, 'wanted' - were the Tango balls. Even now, I REALLY WANT a set of Subbuteo Tango balls... and I haven't played Subbuteo for 30 years or more.

They were available to buy in three colours - white, fluorescent yellow and orange - but the white ones would have been just fine by me. Just like the full-sized equivalent, a true example of perfection in design.

2. Football League Cup trophy (C172)

A bit of a weird choice, this, but it was one of those things that I was instinctively attracted to whenever I saw it on a Subbuteo poster or in a catalogue.

Again, I was lucky; down the years, I managed to attain a Subbuteo World Cup trophy and an FA Cup too, but there was something about the gleaming silver of that three-handled cup so often won by Liverpool in the early-80's that looked extra special to me.

Once you had a trophy, of course, you were obliged to play out a tournament with that as its ultimate prize. My mate Alan Young and I regularly did so, organising World Cup and FA Cup competitions that often took several weekends to complete. But here's the thing: if we'd had a League Cup trophy, we might have felt more obliged to incorporate lower-league teams into our tournaments.

Yes, I admit it - with the teams available in my collection, our FA Cup games did tend to focus on the bigger teams like Manchester United and Liverpool rather than the Darlingtons or the Chesterfields of this world. Maybe that would have been different if we'd have played a League Cup tournament instead. Maybe.

3. Astropitch (C178)

Even now it seems extraordinary to me that Subbuteo should have the ambition and the sheer boldness to create an 'artificial' playing surface, and that's without acknowledging the artificial nature of a green cloth pitch anyway.

Subbuteo's Astropitch arrived in 1980; not, as you may think, a reaction to QPR's Omniturf being installed at Loftus Road, but instead as an homage to NASL where plastic pitches had regularly been in use for several years.

Back in the day, I knew about the Astropitch but didn't care much for it... until I visited the house of my school friend, Trevor Scannell. Unbeknown to me, he was also a Subbuteo fan and was able to prove so by showing me the long green cardboard tube that housed his Astropitch.

I was awestruck. The tube was heavy, and on closer inspection I discovered why - it was because of the rubber backing that the green felt playing surface had. How amazing that you could unroll a pitch that was faultlessly smooth, thereby ensuring a perfect roll for your ball of choice (see above).

From that moment on, I wanted one and yet I never asked for one when Christmas came around. I wonder why? Certainly it seemed expensive to me at the time. It cost £8.50 on release in the shops - the equivalent of around £37.50 today - so it certainly fell into the category of 'special treat' as an ideal festive gift idea. If only I'd have been more strategic in my Christmas list making...

4. Teams (various)

As I mentioned on our fourth podcast, I had a decent core of teams in my collection, many of which were versatile enough to double up as various others. Because of this age-old tactic, there weren't many teams I couldn't include in my competitions, but there were a few that somehow eluded me which would have been a worthwhile acquisition.

Of the international teams that were big back in the early-80's, I'd have very much liked Argentina - partly because those pale blue and white stripes looked terrific, but also because I couldn't replicate the look with another team.

Then there was Peru - an outfit with an almost universally admired kit design - and one which I defiantly used in competitions despite not actually owning it. That was thanks to the almost similar Crystal Palace team that I did own (damn that blue diagonal sash), but let's face it, only the real Peru team would've done, and for that reason I'd have included it on my Christmas list.

Finally, if you're talking about team colours that were strangely missing from my collection, two stood out - green and orange. For the latter, it was only really Blackpool that might have tempted me to make a purchase, but as I admitted earlier, I was never much bothered about lower league teams (Blackpool were in Division Three or Four back then).

So that just leaves green-shirted teams and for that I'd have certainly liked Northern Ireland for my World Cup competitions. Billy Bingham's men had not just qualified for the 1982 World Cup but also gave a good account of themselves, so for topical reasons they'd have been a great team to own. And let's not forget, I could have pretended they were the Republic of Ireland team too, if necessary. Two for the price of one - beat that for cost-effectiveness.

5. World Cup Goals (C130/61130)

Something of a luxury item for me, but how I'd have loved to own them. These were goal frames with nets coloured red and blue - nothing more, nothing less - and yet the introduction of that splash of colour excited me more than most things in my life as a juvenile 10-year-old.

My original Club Edition set had given me goal frames with a plastic bar across the back of the net. This was restrictive beyond belief because you couldn't lift your goalkeeper to block those high shots heading for the top corner of the goal.

That's why I quickly invested in a set of Tournament Goals - pretty much the same as the World Cup Goals, but the nets were plain white. Very nice looking, but more importantly a joy to use as they lacked a plastic bar across the back. Suddenly the mobility of my goalkeepers was (almost) limitless.

All very good, but given the choice, would you rather have had goal frames with a white net, or a dazzling continental-style red/blue net? I thought so, and I agree completely. A World Cup Goal for a World Cup competition would have been the icing on the cake for me, but then again so would any of the above items I've mentioned. Therein lies the beauty of the unattainable in the captivating world of Subbuteo.

-- Chris Oakley

Read More

A Sort Of Christmas Message

Bill Shankly's famous quote about football being more important than life or death has been repeated ad-infinitum so I'm not going to do it here...apart from mentioning it just then...

The line was clearly intended to not be taken too seriously, but one can't help feeling far too many people have taken this as a mantra and can't quite see the folly in it.

Just over a year ago I wrote about my growing dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the modern game. After that, I had a slight change of heart. My home team almost got to the final of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, which may be laughable to some, but to a club that's been through what we have recently, it meant a huge amount. The record attendance for a non final match in the history of that competition is something that will probably stand for a long time. Alas it was that crowd that witnessed us demolished and dumped out of the tournament. It also showed the level of disunity between sets of fans with so called 'plastics' having verbal abuse hurled at them purely because they dared to want to see a match when their team is doing well.


The subsequent move to Northampton has further divided us at a time we ideally ought to put the overall long term future of the club at the forefront of thought and action. I can see both sides of the boycotting home games issue, but fundamentally it's created deep divisions which may never heal. To use a poor analogy, albeit one which does demonstrate the difference between football and actual life quite well, there are families who still don't talk to each other due to their chosen paths in the miners' strike in the mid 80s. The sentiments, arguments and reasoning behind the split is the same, but in this case, it truly was people's livelihoods that were at stake and families were torn apart and remain so to this day, such were the deep feelings involved. Whether Coventry return to the Ricoh or end up in a new stadium, the rifts have been formed and will remain long after we depart Sixfields. The damage has been done and in some cases will never be repaired.

While I don't wish to trivialise people's love for their clubs, it's the level of unreal importance that seems to have invaded the football followers' mindset that disturbs me. I'm not saying that people shouldn't care or that it's "just a game" as it's not, it is indeed a huge part of people's lives...but that's my point...it's a part of life, it's not life itself, yet the sense of hysteria and entitlement that seems to go alongside everything football seems to be at ludicrous levels.

The following tweet from @wearethetwins sums up what I'm talking about.

"#Chelsea considering a change of strategy to salvage their season?!Last 16 of CL + 2 points off 1st in PL. Someone explain how this is bad?"
Someone please do!!! Seriously, how can this be regarded as anything approaching a situation requiring salvage?

What frustrates me most is that, while this hype has been generated for years by media with a product to sell, the sheer volume of fans who have swallowed it whole and spit it back out again verbatim is truly disheartening. The wailing and gnashing over Moyes at Man U after a few months, AVB booted out after a 'run' of poor results etc etc etc.

I'm not for one minute suggesting that managers have always been given time or indeed that some of the sackings haven't been right, what I'm trying to illustrate is the sheer level of noise about it all. Naturally, social media and the availability and anonymity of channels to  vent such spleen is a contributing factor, but again, it's the fact that fans feel this way in the first place, that it's somehow rational to be so outraged and disgusted that your team isn't top of the league and that your worthless piece of shit manager hasn't won every single game he's ever taken charge of! People regularly lose it completely with such unhealthy levels of anger it's sometimes quite shocking, literally shaking with rage that some refereeing decision wasn't 100% spot on or that their star player didn't score with every shot. This sense of indignation that everything isn't perfect is simply staggering: such a misplaced sense of entitlement so grossly out of proportion with events back in the real world.

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't invest emotionally in football; that would be to completely misunderstand the nature of being involved in competitive sport, but when every single 'injustice' (oh and the use of the word injustice?...c'mon!) leaves you in a state of heart attack inducing apoplexy, it's maybe time to take a step back and consider what it does mean to you. Don't stop loving, just maybe turn down the noise a little.

For those wondering why I'm ranting about the modern game on a nostalgia site, while not simultaneously taking the tack of 'it was all perfect in the old days', the thought train that led me here was this...

I was pondering writing a piece to publish on Christmas day, just a nice little message of thanks and all that usual stuff. I then pondered writing something about the famous Christmas day game of football between the soldiers on the front line in World War I and the tragic slaughter that resumed days later. That led me back to Shankly's quote.

Football is a game. It's also more than a game, but it isn't life or death.

Maybe next time you're lining up your sights on your current target of anger, for a second imagine that instead of there being a phone in your hand, there's an actual rifle; that instead of sitting on your comfy sofa, you're in a mud filled trench and the person you're taking aim at is the same guy you shook hands and swapped gifts with the day before. Consider these two situations for a second, consider your lot in life and how much that refereeing decision, that missed shot, that sending off truly affects you and see if it actually means quite so much anymore.

All that said, we at the Attic hope you do all have a great Christmas and that the New Year brings at least one lot of 3 points and for some of you lucky ones, some actual silverware! Enjoy the highs and roll with the lows. Life is not that bad :)

Til Christmas Day, Merry Christmas!

Read More