Subbuteo: My who/what/where/when/why

I was very lucky to have enjoyed Subbuteo when it was surely at its peak. Over a period of five or six years, I built up a small collection of items and played dozens of games, and not once did I fail to be charmed by it. Subbuteo is responsible for some of the happiest times of my childhood. This is what I remember.

Who

It must have been my parents that bought me my first Subbuteo set, not to mention most of the items that made up my eventual collection. Towards the end of the 1970’s, well before I’d reached the age of nine, they got me a Subbuteo Club Edition starter kit. Though basic in its content, it had everything I needed to get started: a pitch, two goals, two teams, two balls and some corner flags (not strictly necessary). Thanks to my mother and father, June and Ron Oakley, Subbuteo quickly became one of my favourite pastimes.

Having attained all manner of teams and accessories over several years, I was then lucky enough to find a regular playing partner. Alan Young, one year my junior, lived only a three-minute walk away and was just as keen on flicking little plastic men as I was. Alan didn't have any Subbuteo equipment of his own, but that didn't matter as I was only too happy to transport all my important bits and pieces to his house every weekend in an old LP carrying case. Together, we’d organise FA Cup and World Cup tournaments, playing them alternately and endlessly on the floor of his bedroom. Happy days indeed.

One of our World Cup tournaments caused considerable embarrassment to me, thanks to my teacher of French, David McKelvey. During one lesson, I decided to relieve a pervading sense of boredom by reading a sheet of paper I’d brought with me to school. It contained all the results from a World Cup competition that Alan and I had played the previous weekend. Highly decorated by my own fair hand (using felt-tip pens and Letraset rub-down lettering), it’s hardly surprising that it caught the eye of Mr McKelvey. Walking around the classroom behind me, he sneaked up, saw me reading my score sheet and snatched it out of my hand. “Ah, what’s this?” he announced to the class. “Subbuteo World Cup 1984? Host nation, Scotland... Group A - Brazil 1, Italy 0... England 2, Sweden 2...” and so he went on, reading out result after result on my piece of paper. It would have been enormously convenient for the ground to open up and swallow me at that moment, but alas it didn’t. Oh the shame…

One final person worthy of mention is a distant aunt of mine whose name I don’t even know. I think she was from my Dad’s side of the family and lived with her family in Kent, miles away from our modest abode in north east London. From what I can recall, she only ever visited our house once and when she did, she arrived carrying three plastic carrier bags stuffed full with something. To my surprise, she handed them to me and said “There you go - these are for you. My son’s too old for these now, so I thought you might like them.” The bags contained a Subbuteo stadium stand awaiting assembly, lots of ‘heavyweight’ teams including Ireland and Scotland, two floodlights and all manner of other paraphernalia. It felt like I’d won the lottery jackpot.

Thank you, ‘mystery aunt’, whoever you were...

What

So what did I end up with in my Subbuteo collection by the time I called it a day at the age of 15? Well let’s start with the accessories. I had one standard pitch, a stadium scoreboard (brilliant), two floodlights (ornamental, but ultimately useless), a TV tower, a Trainers Bench Set (beautifully rendered in clear plastic), a FIFA World Cup trophy, the FA Cup trophy, three FIFA balls (lovely), three Tournament balls (unusable due to the self-adhesive coloured patches that made the ball roll in random directions), a First Aid Set, a Stadium Grandstand (essential for capturing any sense of realism), two Tournament Goals, several packets of number transfers, two Throw-In Figures (crap), two Corner Kick Figures (only slightly better), six Ball Boys (dig those yellow tracksuits, fellas) and a VIP Presentation Set (featuring five people, one of which looks like Her Majesty The Queen holding the FA Cup. Not ideal if you were playing a World Cup tournament, but there it is.)

As for the teams, well first I had ‘The Reds’ (#01) and ‘The Blues’ (#02) that came with my Club Edition set. They were both brilliantly versatile as you could pretend they were many different teams. The Reds could be Denmark, North Korea, Tunisia, Nottingham Forest, Bristol City, Austria (away)... the list goes in. Similarly, The Blues could be Everton, Japan, Leicester City, Birmingham City, Ipswich Town, Cardiff City, Italy… even Scotland and France, at a push. Enough to play an FA Cup and World Cup on their own.

Luckily, I could call upon more variety than that. I also had Liverpool (/Brechin City/Scunthorpe), Spain, Brazil, Manchester United, West Germany (or Ipswich away, Man United away, etc), East Germany (but more usually Tottenham), Crystal Palace (with the classic double diagonal sash), my beloved West Ham United (in late-70’s Admiral attire), Watford, England (which came in a fancy polystyrene-inset box) and West Bromwich Albion away (1983-84).

The latter of these teams I must single out for special mention as it was bought for me by my Dad. My West Brom team, resplendent in yellow shirts and blue shorts, was bought as a ‘get well’ present as I’d been suffering with tonsillitis for some time and my Dad thought it would cheer me up and lift my spirits. It did, and although I now smile at such a random choice of team, I don’t think he could have picked anything better. Horizontal pinstripes were very much the ‘in thing’ at the time, and this team, number 473 in the Subbuteo catalogue, was easily the most modern-looking of all those I owned. Not only that, but I could also use it as Sweden in my World Cup tournaments. Thanks Dad...

Where

As mentioned previously, Alan Young’s bedroom floor was where I had much of my fun as a 13-year-old (stop laughing at the back). Later in life, I discovered that most people played Subbuteo on a table of some sort when they were younger, but this never happened for me. My green cloth pitch was always smoothed out on the carpet wherever I played, and I’d be sat on my knees throughout an entire match, scrabbling around hither and yon to follow the action.

Many was the time I’d visit Alan’s house on a Sunday afternoon to play Subbuteo, especially during the dark Winter months. For the big games, like FA Cup Finals or World Cup Finals, we’d set up the stadium stand and the floodlights (that couldn’t illuminate an ant’s head) along with every accessory in my possession. For regular games, however, we’d make do with the trusty old scoreboard and maybe the TV Tower for a little bit of basic authenticity. As we played, we’d commentate in the way you do when you’re young, writing down the scores for each match along the way. When the opening bars to the Bullseye theme tune could be heard from downstairs, however, I knew it would soon be time to pack everything up and go home.

Apart from Alan’s house in Rowe Gardens, Barking, where most of my Subbuteo playing took place, there were only a couple of other places where flicking and kicking ensued. On a few occasions, I played in the spare room at Martin Lewis’ house. Martin was another good friend of mine and if my poor memory serves, we played Subbuteo on his snooker table, although I could be wrong. One thing I do recall is that he had the Tottenham team in their pale blue away kit. It doubled up as Club Brugge, which no doubt would have been handy for any UEFA Cup tournaments that went on.

Then there was another school friend of mine, Trevor Scannell. I had a brief spell hanging around with him circa 1983, and one time I recall visiting his house during the school summer holidays. I was delighted to discover that he, too, played Subbuteo but when he unveiled his Astropitch, rolled up in its cardboard tube, I felt an envy so strong, it almost bordered on physical violence. I wanted that Astropitch more than anything else for, ooh, the next 20 minutes, and would happily have stolen it if I knew I wouldn’t be the sole suspect for the crime.

When

I was very fortunate in that my early obsession with football coincided with the introduction of Subbuteo’s ‘lightweight’ teams. These were more modern-looking than the previous ones whose players wore baggy shirts and shorts and look like they were designed in the 1950’s (which they probably were). The early-80’s heralded the arrival of this new sleeker version of Subbuteo player along with a wide range of accessories to complete your immersive experience.

I can’t say for certain when I got that first Club Edition set, but my best estimate is 1979. I remember its vivid green box sat on top of the wardrobe in my bedroom, but at the age of only eight, I probably played it rarely. It was only when I attained more teams and a regular playing partner in Alan that the big green box was regularly brought down from its lofty position.

As for the end of my playing days, that would have probably been around 1986. By that point, Alan Young and I had gone our separate ways and my twelve years of school education were coming to an end. I would soon be leaving school to get my first job as a young adult, which meant other seemingly juvenile pastimes like Panini sticker collecting were looked upon as being ‘kids stuff’. But oh, what great pastimes. To have those days back again would be a pleasure beyond compare.

Why

Why should Subbuteo be such an addictive thing to get involved with? Put simply, it offered a make-believe world that couldn’t be penetrated by life’s dissatisfactions. Whether you were building your collection of teams and accessories or playing a game with your mate, Subbuteo was a football world created just for you and enjoyed specifically by you.

Quite why children have a necessity to pretend and envelop themselves in a false reality I don’t know. It makes more sense for adults to keep the real world at arms length, what with all the stresses that come along via marriage, children, families, mortgages, work and heaven knows what else. Maybe that’s why those silly ‘adult colouring books’ have finally made an appearance. By focusing on one seemingly trivial activity, the brain forgets all the bad stuff... and yet as kids, we don’t see certain things as trivial. We see them as valuable - valuable in that they make us smile and be happy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Subbuteo did that for me when I was young. Whether it be the hope of finding a new poster or catalogue at my local toy shop or the turning of a wheel behind the Stadium Scoreboard, Subbuteo was sheer and utter unadulterated bliss. This much I remember.

-- Chris Oakley

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Jon Mills: The Subbuteo Years

Many of us have personal memories of playing Subbuteo and owning various teams and accessories, but Jon Mills has turned his into a guest post that captures the spirit of those innocent times. See how many chime with your own Subbuteo memories!

I’d set them all out carefully before I ran downstairs for breakfast. Mum had been calling me for ages and I knew we were running late but I needed to get the formations right. It was Brazil v Peru and I’d be spending most of the day at school looking forward to it. Looking over my shoulder one more time I took in the wonderful sight of 20 round discs on the green baize on my bedroom floor and the two keepers – their bodies arched back in full stretch, a long green handle protruding out the back of each.

I loved Subbuteo so much. I played it every single evening and being a bit too young to go out on school nights and only having older sisters, I would happily immerse myself in glorious battles between fierce local rivals or exotic sounding countries... It had never bothered me that I was technically playing against myself; in my head it was all about the two teams on the floor.

All through Maths I would be giving the game the appropriate media build-up in my head, all through history I would be pretending to be Zico discussing the game.

And so when the bell rang and I got home, I was straight upstairs for kick-off. It was still light so no need for the floodlights. And then I saw it.

The carnage and the horror. MUUUUMMMM!!

She’d said nothing as she’d driven me home from school. Like a cold-hearted killer, had she no remorse? Were their lives so cheap?

“Oops, sorry, I got a few with the hoover”

And so it was to be, Brazil’s already technical advantage was now physical as three of my Peru back line were now shorter than the rest of the team, huge balls of clear glue around their ankles. For those who had escaped the clean break there lay the cruel fate of disability. The left winger was leaning so far back he was looking more at the ceiling than the game and the playmaker seemed troubled by the horrors he’d witnessed earlier that day.

They lost 4-0.

There must be millions of us with stories like that. I didn't really have the awareness back then to know how popular the game was but I’d imagine that most of the kids in my road will have played it at some point.

By the time it entered my life it had come a long way from its origins in 1947. Those first lads would have enjoyed seeing paper nets being creased by thumping 30-yard shots from cardboard players weighed down by buttons. They wouldn't have stood a chance against me and my plastic army....

Its materials seemed crude until as late at the early-60s when the arrival of plastic moulded players finally sounded the death knell for its bitter rival Topfooty. Once it had moved to the top of the league it showed little sign of weakness, expanding its range towards accessories – all pointless to the game, all essential for the experience.

No, by the time of the early Eighties, you could have Real Madrid against Ajax on Astroturf, floodlights beaming down on the police horses that kept the cheering masses of the terraces at bay. All at a price of course. For most of us, the sight of stunningly painted crowd figures crammed into steep banks of well lit grandstands never got further than the TV adverts that taunted us so.

My memories would be spending long Saturday afternoons inhaling paint fumes as I carefully painted each individual naked crowd figure. The first few would have been detailed with delicate attention to detail – the later ones would be daubed in blues and browns as the novelty wore off and the fumes kicked in.

The stands were expensive so I made do with terracing, the crowd kept from the pitch by plastic fencing in case they took it upon themselves to misbehave. My dad lovingly made a wooden stand with built in floodlight which even after Father Christmas had delivered me two official stands still looked a million times better.

In the corner stood a floodlight which got very hot very quickly. They were expensive too so the opposite corner had a torch taped to a chair. The goals evolved from basic straight-lined to glorious World Cup design with green nets, no less, and the ball could now be purchased in bright orange should a blizzard unexpectedly strike my bedroom. Good grief, what more could a kid want?

And so, hour after hour I would play on my own a game designed for two. But I didn't care... and I twisted the rules... the ref didn't seem to care anyway - he could never keep up with play. I’d reach over stands to flick in crosses, knocking spectators down the steps in an avalanche then try to stab in a winner whilst simultaneously attempting to save it with the usually badly repaired goalie.

If you were lucky like me, your cloth pitch was nailed to hardboard and your goals held down with drawing pins. If you weren't that lucky, most goalmouth scrambles resulted in players facing tsunami sized bobbles in turf and the goal moving several yards backwards as the keeper got stuck in the net. The lack of goalmouth technology always threw the decision back your way – often resulting in a random throw-in to keep the momentum of the game.

When the eyelids got harder to lift and the scoreboard reached 9 and could turn no more, I would methodically place each of the players back in their polystyrene boxes. I don’t remember many toys being looked after so well by me – I think I was truly smitten.

And for all of us who would have given a smile at the news in 2012 that it was back in production, we must surely have also given a nostalgic sigh at the thought of it trying to challenge in a market saturated by video games.

We are more likely to hear our children shouting that the wi-fi is down than ever hear them complain their entire defence has been maimed by a hoover.

Their loss.

-- Jon Mills

Our enormous thanks to Jon for sending us such evocative memories of Subbuteo. If you've got any of your own, why not write your own blog post and send it to us? You'll find our contact details here, so do get in touch! 

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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

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Subbuteo: Short-Sided Variations

Think of Subbuteo and you think of eleven plastic men pitted against eleven on a big green cloth pitch. It was ever thus; in its simplistic form, Subbuteo was nothing if not a beguiling interpretation of football on a miniature scale.

What's not so well known is that the makers of this classic football game also made several other variations, each with their own quirks and foibles...

1. Fivesides

"The Replica of Indoor Soccer" as it proudly called itself, this game was launched in the 1950's as a complimentary edition to the regular Subbuteo 11-a-side format. Aimed at improving your playing techniques, Fivesides consisted of a half-size pitch with minimal markings, some tape to act as a low wall around the perimeter of the playing surface, two modified goals and a pea-sized football.

There were three different sets to buy, ascending in price - Introductory, Standard and Deluxe - and the first two of those didn't even come with any players. By using the players from your original Subbuteo set, you could save some money and still enjoy the essence of the game.

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League of Blogs 2014

Yes folks it's League of Blogs time again!

What's 'League of Blogs' I hear some of you ask? Well, you can have a look at the entire history of the project here or take a look back at last year's and 2012's to get a quick overview, but in short it all started with a love of designing kits and a desire to share that with other bloggers.

Once again, we've not rested on our laurels and have striven to come up with something different for 2014.

As such, the theme for this year's League of Blogs is the "Turn of the Century" (the 19th/20th Century, that is, not the year 2000!). Now, that doesn't mean your designs have to reflect the style of that era (though the little Subbuteo man does have a rather 1900's look about him this year), but what it does mean is instead of a wallchart or sticker book, League of Blogs 2014 will be presented as old-timey cigarette cards. Genius!

As with last year, we'll be allowing badges as well as kits, though again, just a Home and Away kit... they didn't have 3rd kits in 1900 so we're not having them now ;-)

There's also a great prize this year! Whoever we choose as having our favourite kit design will win a whole Subbuteo team hand-painted in their winning design, courtesy of the awesome Adam of Fantasy Flicker. (Last year's winner & several other LoB entries can be seen here)

So here's what you need to do:

• Create a 'club badge' for your blog or podcast. You may have a logo already, but if you want to create a new one anyway, that's fine.
• Create a kit. You can create an 'away' one as well if you wish... we've made room for one. No '3rds' this time though :)
• Create a tagline for your blog. This should be a single sentence explaining what your blog or pod is or what it aims to achieve.

For the kits:

Choose a template to download by clicking on the JPG or GIF images below. When the full-size version opens up on your screen, save it to your computer.

.GIF template

.JPG template

Get colouring! You can design your strip digitally with a graphics package like Adobe Photoshop or you could print the template out, colour it in with your felt-tip pens and scan the finished article. Either way, you should have a .JPG or .GIF file at the end of the process for each strip you're designing.

Send your .JPGs or .GIFs to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com along with your website's name and URL.

Oh and if you're not much of a designer or you don't own any felt-tip pens, why not tell us what you'd like your kit to look like? Email us at the address shown above with as much detail as possible and we'll try to turn your ideas into reality!

For the badge:

Freestyle is the name of the game here! :) You can create a traditional coat of arms/shield-based badge or you can create a modern-style logo. Of course if you already have a logo for your website or podcast, you can submit that as your 'club badge.' If you need any help creating anything, just give us a shout and we'll see what we can do.

Once you've done that, we'll present them in the following style in the League of Blogs Gallery.

Badge

Home

Away

Right... that's our efforts... now over to you!

Any questions, give us a shout in the comments below, via Twitter or on Facebook.

P.S. If you've entered the League of Blogs previously, you can use your old badge / kits if you wish... just let us know.

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Subbuteo Accessories - The Grandest of Stands!

Subbuteo was expensive, we all know that. To own a complete stadium, one either had to be very rich or work for Subbuteo and have the old five finger discount applied. It's not surprising therefore, to find that quite a few of us out there took to making our own accessories. Having complained bitterly about the poor quality of the official floodlights, I recently dug out my old grandstand and added some modern LED lighting (left). Others went much further than this, some creating true masterpieces. Here, Peter Briers of the92dotnet shares not only his memories, but also his truly awesome home made creations...

Unfortunately I missed the golden Subbuteo generation as I grew up in the Nineties, but was introduced to the game by my old man who loved it. He worked on the sports desk at the Southampton Echo and every so often they used to have tournaments. I vividly remember he brought home an old briefcase full of different teams, nets, balls and a pitch and I was bitten by the bug.

None of my friends really liked it so I mainly played on my own or with my dad. By this time the Playstation was about and the Mega drive had been, Fifa was the football game of choice. It got to the stage where you couldn’t really get Subbuteo, so I was left to the early days of eBay or Yahoo auctions to try and grab pieces when I could. Similarly to you guys, I probably spent more time creating the scene than playing the game. When the game was re-released, the player's bases were different – they were wider and flatter on the bottom – not as good as the older ones in my opinion, but as I wanted the Premier League teams with sponsors etc, I had to accept them.

I was an only child in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in deepest Dorset and largely had to amuse myself. I ran a league of about 10 teams at times – but I couldn’t include my team (Southampton) as I know I would have been bias. I was very into collecting things like stickers and football figures as well as making things like Airfix kits and model railways buildings and scenes. Since the range of accessories wasn’t available in the shops and with my like of making things, I set about making, customising and creating my own accessories. I have shown these pictures to friends since but don’t think anyone has properly appreciated the effort and time that went into what I made. Here are some stills I took and descriptions below:

Pic 1

Pic 1: My TV tower and tunnel! Created with a box and some loo rolls. If you look carefully, there is a window half up the tower in which sits two commentators which are retired Airfix pilots. Above them is a small bulb and battery that sits in the tube above them that lights up their ‘studio’. Above the studio is the action replay screen, in which is inserted a plastic item I got in my Shreddies during Euro 96 – it’s one of those things where the action picture changes when you move it. The tower is adorned with sponsor logos cut out from my old Merlin Premier League sticker swaps. The tunnel has a piece of card at an angle painted with layer upon layer of PVA glue so the players could slide out onto the pitch. Next to the tunnel is a door with a green cross on, in which are two old players painted red with white crosses on, holding a stretcher fashioned from a cocktail stick and paper (can’t find of pic of them in action unfortunately!).

Pic 2

Pic 2: As a I mentioned before, I was a child of the Nineties and the accessories had somewhat changed. The stands I was able to get my hands on were the newer kind and looked pretty good. They were expensive so I had to try and make them go further, so I turned it into terracing sticking the upper and lower tier side by side. It also helped operate the goalkeeper better with a lower stand. In the middle is some segregation in the form of a cut up tangerine net and a Boots logo cut out from a carrier bag to cover up some of the empty space – as you said crowds were expensive! To the top right is an extra advertising board and behind, the classic scoreboard.

Pic 3

Pic 3: Over the years I managed to get four grandstands – the other three went along the side of the pitch that backed onto my chest of drawers – the height on that side wasn’t an issue. Some sponsors came in the box, but not enough, so I spent a long time trailing through magazines cutting out logos that were the right size to fit. You’ll also more tangerine segregation netting and a second scoreboard (I had a second from a box set I'd got later in my collecting).

Pic 4

Pics 4, 5, 6: With out a doubt my finest creation – a grandstand I built entirely from scratch. It took weeks but I was so proud of it. Inspired by the clock end at Highbury, yes the clock at the top is a working clock, with the mechanism coming from a Year 9 school woodwork project. At the back of the roof the stanctions are painted Scalectrics parts, and at the top you have the executive boxes. The seats and stairs took ages! The seats are record cards, A6 size I think, that I spent ages scoring with a Stanley knife and folding then sticking down.

The stairs in between the isles were painted sample stripes from B&Q, again scored and folded. It took hours as I’m sure you can imagine! I painted the whole thing with tester pots from B&Q. In pic 6 you can see the stewards along the front – players from an old team (too many of which were broken to be able to form a team anymore) painted with orange coats on. Finally there’s the camera stand on the side. Just noticed half-way up on the left side of pic 5 you can see the stretcher bearers! The stand had to be moved when I played against my old man as it was impractical, but when I was by myself it was ok.

Pic 5

Pic 6

Pic 7

Pic 7: I tried to recreate the more modern goal nets from my old style ones – more of a struggle than it seems!

Huge thanks to Peter for sharing his Subbuteo memories and creations! If you'd like to share anything from your past (preferably football nostalgia related, we're not licensed therapists!), drop us a line and let us know to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com...

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Subbuteo catalogue, 1986

There can be fewer more gladdening sights as a Subbuteo match being played in front of a packed stadium under floodlights, fans holding their scarves aloft in the foreground. The floodlights, in reality, were about as bright as the North Pole in December and some of the fans were supporting a team in red that weren’t even playing, but these are small details. Welcome to the world of Subbuteo.

Published in time for the 1986 World Cup, this was the first catalogue to be released by Subbuteo since 1981 after several years where the poster format was deemed better at promoting the full range of products. And a fine catalogue it was too: 15 full colour pages showing off a whopping 636 team kits, along with the usual array of  factual information, accessories and team indexes.

For me, this catalogue is better to look at than the 1988 version we covered back in April last year. It’s not too overstyled, it’s got many more team strips to look at on each double page and the pictures are bigger and brighter. True, you get the usual text explaining how Subbuteo was invented and developed and a brief explanation of how the basic ‘flick-to-kick’ concept works, but it fits in nicely with the imagery that captures a kid’s imagination so well.

The three boxed sets are there for all to see, including the World Cup Edition that contained the teams of Mexico (1986 hosts) and Italy (1982 champions). Better still was the International Edition: here you had three teams (red/white, blue/white and Argentina) plus a scoreboard, floodlights, pitch fencing and all the paraphernalia you could ever wish for.

As for the accessories, many were displayed in their green branded cardboard boxes or their clear plastic-fronted cardboard packs. Seeing so many items looking smart in their uniformly designed packaging made you feel like there was a never-ending supply of wonderful whatchamacallits to keep you interested for years and years.

And to celebrate a World Cup year, there was also a photographic trip down memory lane to remember not just the most recent FIFA tournaments, but also the Subbuteo World Cups that were held in the same year. Of more interest to the average collector, however, were the new special edition World Cup Squads that contained 14 outfield players and two goalkeepers, all presented in a bigger-than-usual box. The available squads were illustrated accordingly, providing you with the perfect reference should you decide to purchase the teams for Iraq, Canada or Australia.

With all the team indexes at the back and a pleasing array of flags showcasing the national Subbuteo associations on the reverse cover, there was no excuse for not laying out your pitch and flicking away to your heart’s content. Everything you needed to get you going was contained between the pages of this lovely catalogue. Shame about those floodlights, though…

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Subbuteo catalogue, 1969

Chances are if you lay your hands on any Subbuteo catalogue or poster, its main feature will be the ever-satisfying gallery of team kits for you to ponder over. This booklet, however, took a broader view - to promote Subbuteo as a phenomenon and to inform the public on how Subbuteo football is played.

Inside, the text is as finely honed by marketing experts as anything you'll find today. "Why are Subbuteo Sports Games so successful and popular? The simple answer is that they have been invented to mirror the many-sided attractions of modern sport to perfection. On your table in your home. Competition, enjoyment, skill, thrills... they are all there in miniature."

And so it goes on, telling us how Subbuteo Sports Games have been crafted to perfection as "the result of much thought and experiment over the years" to "represent in a boy's mind his favourite sports stars" and "are not just splendid to look at." If you wonder why Subbuteo is still held in such high regard today, it's because Peter Adolph, the creator of Subbuteo and the man that gave us these quotes, knew it was good all along and was finally confident enough to shout it from the rooftops. In the years that followed, more and more of us bought into the beauty of the game and thus a legend was born - no question.

This booklet helped to create an alluring image for the kids that wanted to play the game. Illustrations of Subbuteo figures standing shoulder to shoulder with smart-dressed smiling boys and their father reinforced the cheery vision of family fun that Adolph was keen to promote. Above them, the various boxed sets gave children something to crave the next time a birthday or Christmas came around. With words like 'Continental' and 'International' emblazoned in big red letters on the front, it was difficult for young kids not to get caught up in the excitement of it all.

For anyone still not aware of how the game was played some 23 years after it was first sold, a basic explanation was provided alongside quote after quote from satisfied customers the world over. "Vancouver Royals 6 Manchester United 2. Well, it looked pretty good on our table, anyway!" said P.N. Calder in Vancouver, Canada.

Although the wide range of team strips were not shown, several pages were dedicated to detailing many of the football accessories that were available to buy. Among them were a track-suited team "ready to run onto the field" but looking more like a band of onesie-wearing pitch invaders and a 'football statuette' on a plinth "in all club colours." As we've mentioned before, not all Subbuteo accessories had much of a purpose, but at least the sense of creativity behind them was never in doubt.

As if the world of Subbuteo soccer wasn't enough, there was also Table Cricket to master too. A picture showing a game in play provided ample proof that Peter Adolph had applied just as much attention to detail as with the football equivalent. Two groundsmen pulling a roller, sightscreens and a fully operational scoreboard were among many items on hand to complete the image of village green perfection in the juvenile mind.

With Rugby and 'Fivesides' (Subbuteo indoor soccer) also mentioned within the pages of this booklet, it seemed there was an entertaining world of sport to be enjoyed at your fingertips if you were a child of the Sixties. Little did anyone know that this was just the start of bigger things to come in the world of Subbuteo.

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Subbuteo catalogue, 1988

When you come to appraise Subbuteo football kit designs as a fully grown adult, you accept the fact that some of them won’t look quite right. This isn't a problem most of the time because we understand that Subbuteo’s charm comes from the way it simplifies the real world in miniature form.

Unfortunately, there’s an exception to every rule and in the case of Subbuteo’s 1988 catalogue, it’s the Tottenham team shown on the front cover. Ignore for a moment the not-so-subtle use of Umbro product placement worn by the six boys and instead focus your attention on the white-shirted players on the Subbuteo pitch. According to the kit listing inside the catalogue, this is Tottenham Hotspur but I ask you, kit aficionados of the world - when have you ever seen Tottenham wear a kit like that?

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Winterthur...The Truth Revealed!

You may recall (though given the number of hits it got, you probably don't ;-P ) I wrote the below article all about how I got a free Subbuteo team from Shoot! Magazine.

Well, as it turns out, it wasn't, it was from Match...how do I know this?

While surfing eBay the other day, I chanced upon a copy of Match from December 1987. Across the front was a strapline: "Free Subbuteo Teams - Collect Token No. 1 Inside"

Could it be?

Then, purely by chance, good friend Rob Stokes of theglovebag.com sent me a pic and mentioned he'd been going through a decade's worth of Match mags. I asked him to see if he could find the one I'd seen and he did! Not only that, but he kindly scanned in the original articles / offers (and the tokens...evidently he didn't get a free team ;-) )

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Fantasy Nostalgia: Subbuteo 1900

While writing our recent article about football cigarette cards from 1938, it occurred to me that the game of soccer in the UK back then must have been a very colourful one indeed. Like many of you, I've occasionally seen pictures of footballers from the early twentieth century and marvelled at the garish colours and antiquated styles of the uniforms worn in that long-forgotten era.

But the thought quickly came to mind that if football really was so colourful back then, what would a Subbuteo poster from that era have looked like if the game had existed?  It was at this moment that I hatched a plan to create the image you see below:

Click for larger version

To be specific, I tried to create the image of a Subbuteo poster as it may have looked back at the start of 1900. The teams that are featured are from the Football Leagues of England and Scotland during the 1899-1900 season as well as international teams. Not that there were many of the latter; only England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales were playing football at international level until 1902.

Where the kits are concerned, I've used artistic license from time to time where specific details were unavailable for the start of 1900. In those cases, I've used an approximate image based on the nearest kit recorded to that date. In short, this is a very generalised depiction of the kits being worn back in the day.

As for the poster itself, I've kept the styling fairly simple to maximise overall clarity because if the Victorians liked one thing, it was ornate decoration. Don't get me wrong - I like a curlicue as much as the next man, but one can have too much of a good thing.

Anyway, you're invited to click on the image for a closer look at the teams playing at the start of the last century (apologies for small index text, by the way), and if you can't find your favourite club, they either hadn't been formed, hadn't joined the league or were operating under a different name back then. No prizes for identifying any teams in the last category!

(To view the image at full size, left-click on the image above, then when the image appears on your screen, right-click on it and save it to your computer. Once there, you can view it in a graphics package or Windows.)

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Top 5 Subbuteo World Cup Accessories That Never Were

Subbuteo, as we all know, created many many accessories to enhance the realism of the beautiful tabletop game. Some were great and their existence was without question... Others made you wonder who exactly came up with the idea (ball throwing goalies on sticks?!?!).

To that end, I hereby present some more Subbuteo accessories that, for all we know, may have been one step away from production... assuming the decision makers were tripping balls of course...

Triggs - Roy Keane's Dog

Forget host country South Korea's extraordinary journey to the semi final. The true star of the 2002 World Cup was a bit more hairy though probably covered just as much ground.

Meet Triggs, the lovable labrador who shot to fame after Roy's early exit (I'd say hissy fit, but I value my legs too much) from the Republic of Ireland's base camp.

Combine him with any Roy Subbuteo figure and the TV Tower and you too can recreate those hazy days 11 years ago when the world media chased a bloke and his pooch round the streets while the rest of the world wanted to watch some football... at 9 o'clock in the bloody morning...

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Subbuteo Team Collections - Andrew Rockall

We received an email from Andrew Rockall (Statto_74) yesterday, showing us his recently discovered collection of Subbuteo teams. We're very happy to showcase them here as it's damn impressive! Over to Andrew for the background...

Twenty years ago I made a conscious decision to save my Subbuteo things for any future children I might have. I came across the box of goodies last week and thought it was time to dust it down and take a nostalgic look.

I was amazed to find I still have 33 teams. As you can see from the kit designs, I made almost all of my purchases during the 80's. What surprised me were several teams I know I had but have somehow mislaid.

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Subbuteo: Accessories for the modern era

Subbuteo today leads a charmed life. Having peaked in the late-1970's, it dwindled away into virtual obscurity during the next decade or two and looked for a while as though 'flick to kick' had breathed its last. Luckily, despite several clumsy attempts by various companies to try and reinvent the brand, it survives to this day thanks to a loyal legion of fans keen to bring the game up to date in their own inventive ways.

Yet one can't help wondering what Subbuteo would be like today had it continued uninterrupted on its upward curve of the 1970's. The game of football today is different in so many ways to the one we knew back then, but would Subbuteo have changed with it? If so, what would we, the humble consumer, be buying for our collections if the game was as big today?

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The Football Attic Podcast Episode 4 - Subbuteo

Like buses in a lame joke, you wait ages for an Attic podcast and then several turn up at once!

Yes you lucky people, we're here again! This time we decided to waffle on about Subbuteo and we did so for over an hour! Sorry about that, but y'know...you have a fast forward button ;-)

Thanks to all those who responded to our call on twitter. We tried to mention you all, but apologies if we missed you.

So...sit back and enjoy(?) episode 4 of the Football Attic podcast!

Usual Disclaimer: We still haven't managed to get iTunes working so to download it, it's the rather retro method of 'Right-click and Save As' from the link below:

Football Attic Podcast Episode 4

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Subbuteo poster, 1983

Nothing could be more guaranteed to brighten up a young child’s bedroom wall than a Subbuteo poster. It’s been proven scientifically, probably. By the time this masterpiece came out in 1983, the masters of the flick-to-kick revolution had been annually publishing posters and catalogues for decades, each with its own distinctive graphics and identity.

The premise, as ever, was a simple one: to show off the myriad teams and accessories available to buy for the avid collector. Here, those same teams could be seen surrounding the big football motif; row upon row of colourful sporting soldiers, marching (as best they could when their feet were glued to a hemisphere) across this parade of printed perfection.

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Al Gordon's Five Subbuteo Items They Never Made

Following on from our Top 5 Subbuteo Items articles, regular Football Attic contributor Al Gordon of God, Charlton & Punk Rock has come up with a novel twist on the idea...his top 5 Subbuteo accessories they never made...

Subbuteo had pretty much every angle of the beautiful game covered didn't they? From ambulance men to TV commentators, from floodlights to dugouts, every fixture and every fitting was scaled down and turned into plastic so that we could recreate the whole mesmerising experience in our living rooms when it was far too miserable outside to kick a real football about.

Have you ever noticed gaps in the catalogue though? Have you seen something on a Saturday afternoon and wished you had the miniature version back at home. Streakers were never an official accessory but a table football shop in Wales saw the need and created their own.

Here are five items I’d add given half the chance, not everybody’s cup of tea I’ll admit so please feel free to comment and tell me what you’d have added to Subbuteo to give it even more charisma.

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Rich J's 5 Worst Subbuteo Items

At the recent Socrates meet up, an interesting discussion arose, inspired by our original five top Subbuteo articles (here and here). What were the worst five?

There was an almost unanimous verdict that the worst of the lot was number one on this list, but what would the other four be? Subbuteo produced a raft of accessories so it should be pretty easy to find five terrible ones surely? Well, not as easy as you'd think.

Using the wealth of info on the Peter Upton site, I trawled through them all and if I'm honest, I was hard pushed to complete a top five! While a lot of accessories were superfluous (the police set or 'players warming up' for example), at least they added to the atmosphere and they were only ever intended as diorama figures, so here I'm concentrating on things which seemed to either serve no purpose whatsoever or were just bad at what they were designed to do.

So...here are my five worst Subbuteo items.

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Subbuteo Catalogue 1973-74

Before I start, a slight disclaimer. This isn't a catalogue in the way we normally think of such things these days. It's actually a folded poster, but given the fact that it lists all the Subbuteo teams and accessories available to buy throughout the 1973-74 season, one shouldn't be too critical - not least at this early stage.

And not least too because this is a lovely piece of football memorabilia that evokes that charming crudeness that comes with all things created decades ago. The cover, for instance, shows us four young Subbuteo players from Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany extolling the virtues of this truly international table soccer game. Throw in a few tried and trusted stereotypical phrases from the continent ("Wunderbar!") and you're off to a flyer.

Elsewhere on the unfolded front of this big 50 x 70cm poster, there were neat pictures of 'some exciting accessories by Subbuteo', if indeed fence surround panels could be deemed exciting. Still, to the young boy or girl entering this plastic fantasy world, what could be more thrilling than the thought of buying some splendid floodlights or indeed a pair of new 'World Cup-type Goals'?

If that wasn't enough to satiate your Subbuteo appetite, you could also pass a spare half-hour pondering on which boxed set you'd like for your next birthday or Christmas, perhaps. There were several sets to choose from, the best of which was the all-new 'Munich World Series Edition'. Cunningly tied in with the upcoming World Cup in West Germany, this was the set that had it all including scoreboard, floodlights, TV Tower, ball boys, England team and "literature." Presumably the complete works of Shakespeare were not included in this respect.

Even if you'd picked up this football-dominated poster by mistake in your local toy shop, you were still potentially catered for. Subbuteo's now famous dalliance with rugby and cricket could also be found in miniature form along with Snooker Express, a game rarely heard of these days. In it, you had to flick a snooker player (think typical Subbuteo football player but dressed formally, chalking a cue) onto a small plastic cue ball in the hope that it would in turn pot one of the other coloured balls into a pocket. The whole thing was played within the confines of the box lid and was, by all accounts, fiendishly difficult to play. Full marks to Subbuteo for at least trying out the idea, though.

All this, however, was merely a sideshow for the main event. Without question, the vast majority of people buying this poster - sorry, catalogue - were doing so because they wanted to gawp longingly at the 165 kits displayed on the 'International Team Colours Chart'. Here there was the annual opportunity to wonder at the colours and designs rarely or never seen before.

Which team wears sky blue shirts with royal blue hoops? Who plays in red shirts with a white diagonal sash? Who on earth plays in all black with yellow trim?  Such were the inconsequential ponderings generated by this arrangement of player figures stuck into a white board and photographed for our pleasure.

When it came to answering the aforementioned questions, we did, of course, need a list and one was provided across almost the entire reverse side of the poster. Though Subbuteo in more recent years gave us the basic details of team name and number sorted alphabetically or numerically, here we had a grid containing sub-divided columns for Shirt and Short Colours (but not socks), 'English League First, Second, Third and Fourth Divisions, Scottish, Irish and Welsh Teams' plus 'International and World Cup Teams'. All delightfully over-complicated, despite the top border of the poster claiming this to be a "simple chart."

As is always the way, what you see by scanning across the vast lists of teams is a snapshot of world football as it was almost 40 years ago. There are Football League teams that no longer exist (Southport, Workington), teams that no longer occupy today's global spotlight (Rot-Weiss Essen (Germany), Red Star (France)) and teams that are frankly just misspelled or misunderstood (Atletico Bilbao, Fiorentino, etc.)

There's also a healthy supply of club teams from apartheid-era South Africa such as Cape Town City, Durban United and Southern Suburbs. Though Subbuteo would ultimately branch out into the world of NASL within a few years, this was the only way for players of all kinds to get a sense of club football beyond continental Europe back in 1973-74.

As if all that wasn't enough, you could always go for something completely left field where your team choices were concerned. You could pick up a Southern League team or two if the likes of Bishop Auckland and Burton Albion were your thing, or what about FC Subbuteo (Barcelona) or even United Kingdom?

There really was something for everybody back then, and amazingly this wasn't even the peak of Subbuteo's popularity. Happy days.

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