Subbuteo at 70: still finger-flicking good
IT’S the table football game that became an obsession for generations of Scottish schoolboys but fell foul of the rise of computer games and looked destined to become a thing of the past. Now, though, as it celebrates its 70th anniversary, Subbuteo is making a small, if understandably frail, comeback.
For those raised on Tetris and Sonic the Hedgehog, Subbuteo may be considered as prehistoric as eight-track cartridges, flares and space hoppers. But as the game hits 70 years old this week, diehard fans are on the hunt for kids to keep the “flick to kick” table soccer game alive.
There are two Scottish clubs which take part in organised matches with just one youngster involved – 17-yearold Fraser McKenzie from the Glasgow Table Soccer Association. But even he struggles to take part in the matches as he is finishing exams.
The association’s Tom Burns said: “Most of the guys who play it played it 30 or 40 years ago. There’s not many youngsters playing the game and that’s the problem. What you get with Subbuteo is the face-to-face thing.”
Burns said that the game was a world away from “looking at a screen”, adding: “When you get fed up or you’re getting beaten, you just click a button and start again, with Subbuteo you have to keep playing. That’s what puts the youngsters off.”
But there was a time when the lowtech game in Scotland was something that parents kept forgotten in their loft. In 1992, the Glasgow club folded due to lack of numbers and there was a 16-year period when, as Burns puts it, “the game died out”. Ten years later a survey revealed that 90 per cent of fathers over the age of 30 owned a Subbuteo set.
Now, eight years after having reformed clubs in 2008, there are nearly 30 competitive players in Dundee (the team is Tayside Kickers) and Glasgow. On April 8 and 9, Scotland will host champion finger-flickers from around Europe playing in a major international tournament, the Scottish Grand Prix, to coincide with the game’s anniversary.
The competition, kicking off at the Normandy Hotel in Renfrew, may be small-scale, with around 50 people expected to compete, but it is big on talent. Top teams and players from Belgium, Italy, Malta, Greece and Spain are all expected, including Daniel Scheen, the number one-ranked veteran player in the international table football federation rankings.
Subbuteo first appeared in 1947, courtesy of Englishman Peter Adolph, whose venture was a refinement of a 1920s game called Newfooty. Adolph originally intended to name his creation The Hobby, but the patents office would not allow the title, so he was forced to rethink.
Being a keen ornithologist, Adolph turned for inspiration to the English hobby falcon, whose Latin name is falco subbuteo. The falcon insignia has appeared on all Subbuteo products ever since.
The first Subbuteo sets contained two teams which consisted of small plastic bases and press-out flat cardboard player figures which had to be inserted into them.
The goalkeepers had metal rods for control and the goals were metal with paper netting and the ball was made of celluloid. There was no pitch. Customers were instructed to mark it out in chalk on “an old army blanket”.
The first sets were sold by mail order or at games exhibitions and the self-balancing player figures made them a huge success.
“Various design modifications were made throughout the 1960s and 70s, the familiar green felt pitch was introduced and along came the now-famous weighted plastic men which you could get in your favourite team’s colours, giving rise to the cult of Subbuteo team collecting.
By the 1970s more than 300 football team strips were available, as were corner-kickers, throw-in figures, goalkeepers on springs for a realistic “save effect”, managers complete with sheepskin coats and hats, and stadiums.
The game’s popularity led to more moulded figures such as streakers, fans, TV commentators, TV towers, floodlights and ball boys.
At its peak, more than 300,000 miniature teams were sold each year.
The first Subbuteo World Cup was held in 1987, the same year in which Justin Finch, a 16-year-old Brit who was then ranked fifth in the world, made the front pages of the papers after insuring his right hand for £160,000.
By the mid-1990s, though, sales had declined dramatically and in 2000 the game’s owner Hasbro announced it was ceasing production in the UK, blaming “the huge number of football-related games” that had “flooded the market”.
But at the London Toy Fair five year ago, manufacturer Paul Lamond Games revealed it was relaunching the table-top game under licence from Hasbro – and it still continues to produce sets. In 2017, it is no longer a pocket-money game. The older competitors, who would have paid a couple of pounds for a team 40 years ago, now pay between £60 and £70.
“Nowadays you don’t get many breakages though and the figures are stronger,” said Burns. “The older game is a slower game, the newer game is faster because the bases are flatter and they don’t fall down all the time, so you can play continuously. Your concentration level has to be higher and you have to think quicker,” he added.
“It has probably endured because of the people you meet. I have lifelong friends through the game and have been playing it now 40 years. “
With over 2,000 competitive ranking players, there is no sign of the game’s final whistle.