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Subbuteo

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Subbuteo
PublishersPaul Lamond Games
Players2 or 4
Setup time2 minutes
Playing time10–90 minutes
ChanceVery low
Age range8 and up
SkillsDexterity

Subbuteo is a group of table top games simulating team sports such as association football, cricket, both codes of rugby and hockey. The name is most closely associated with the football game, which for many years was marketed as "the replica of Association Football".

The "Subbuteo" name is derived from the neo-Latin scientific name Falco subbuteo (a bird of prey commonly known as the Eurasian hobby), after a trademark was not granted to its creator Peter Adolph (1916–1994) to call the game "Hobby".[1]

History

Players in national team colours from the late 1980s. The main figure is in the colours of the reference 457 Argentina team, while the figure in the foreground is in the colours of the reference 410 Brazil team.

The availability of Subbuteo was first announced in the August 1946 edition of The Boy's Own Paper. The advert offered to send details of the new game but no sets were available until March 1947. Also in August 1946 Peter Adolph lodged an outline patent application for the game which was not finalised until May 1947. After the early adverts it is rumoured orders started to pour in as Adolph set about converting his patent idea into a deliverable product.

The first Subbuteo sets, known as the Assembly Outfits, consisted of goals made of wire with paper nets, a cellulose acetate ball, cardboard playing figures in two basic kits (red shirts with white shorts, and blue shirts with white shorts) and bases made from buttons weighed down with lead washers. The story is that Peter Adolph found one of his mother's coat buttons and used Woolworth buttons for the early set bases. No pitch was provided: instead, the purchaser was given instructions on how to mark out (with chalk, provided) a playing area on to a blanket (an old army blanket was recommended). The first sets were eventually available in March 1947, several months after the original advertisement appeared. The first figures were made of flat cardboard cut out of a long strip. Later these card players came in press-out strips before being replaced with the two-dimensional celluloid figures, known to collectors as "flats".

Early production of Subbuteo was centered in Langton Green near Tunbridge Wells, in Kent. Following the advent of the OO scale players the player figures were individually hand painted by local housewives.

In its early years, Subbuteo had a fierce rivalry with Newfooty, a similar game that had been invented in 1929 by William Keeling of Liverpool. In the run up to Christmas 1961 Adolph introduced a three-dimensional handpainted plastic figure into the range. After several design modifications, this figure evolved by 1967 into the classic "heavyweight" figure pictured below. Newfooty ceased trading in 1961 after a failed television advertising campaign but its demise is thought to be linked to the launch of the moulded Subbuteo players. There were several further evolutions of figure design. In 1978 the "zombie" figure was introduced to facilitate the machine painting of figures. After much negative feedback, the zombie figure was replaced in 1980 by the "lightweight" figure, pictured above, that continued until the 1990s. The game was very popular until it suddenly stopped production. The brand was initially relaunched by Hasbro who for a short time produced flat 'photorealistic' card style figures on bases, rather than the three dimensional figures.In 2012 Subbuteo returned to the shops with the new style three dimensional rubber figures launching Subbuteo into its eighth decade of production.Subbuteo also made other things for the collector, such as stands to create a stadium, cups, crowds, police figures and much more.

The game

Heavy weight players from the late 1970s. The one on the left is a customized figurine representing an AS Monaco FC player. The other two are as originally painted.

Playing Subbuteo is a physical simulation of Association Football, involving dexterity and skill in flicking the playing figures, which stand on weighted bases, across the tabletop pitch towards the ball.

What makes the game different from most other tabletop sports games are the hundreds of team kits and accessories. While most games feature only two teams (usually "red vs blue" or "white vs black"), Subbuteo has several hundred team designs, almost all represent real teams with the notable exception of comic book legends Melchester Rovers. While there were many famous teams such as Chelsea and Barcelona, these were complemented by many unique sides, such as Boston Minutemen, Landskrona, Antwerp, Hartford Bicentennials, Admira Wacker, and even unpainted models. There are also many additional accessories, such as new balls and goals, special figures for free kicks and throw-ins, stands and crowd, linesmen, ball-boys, streakers and policemen, floodlights, TV cameras and even a mini-Her Majesty the Queen to present the FA Cup.[2]

Subbuteo has more than one competitive circuit, one of which is known by the term sports table football governed by FISTF. In 1992 there was even an attempt to have Subbuteo made an Olympic sport.[3]

Rules of Subbuteo

Subbuteo inside packs.
Subbuteo players.

The rules of Subbuteo table football attempts to correspond as closely as possible with Association Football. However, the necessary simplifications involved in some ways complicate things further. Players maintain possession as long as the figure they flick makes contact with the ball and the ball does not subsequently hit an opposing figure, although the same figure cannot be used for more than three consecutive flicks. Shots at goal can be taken only once the ball is over the 'shooting line', a line parallel to and equidistant between the goal line and half-way line. The goalkeeper figures are attached to, and manoeuvered with, a rod that fits underneath the back of the goal. The offside law is in effect, but only pertaining to figures that are forward of the opposing team's shooting line (as opposed to the half-way line, as in actual football).

  • In the episode "The Big Lock-Out" from British sitcom Black Books, Manny fails to hear the disarming code for the new security system after being distracted by a Subbuteo player in the installer's hair.
  • A 1988 mini-series, Playing For Real, told the story of a fictional Subbuteo team called Real Falkirk and starred Patricia Kerrigan as its player-manager.[4]
  • The 1997 British film Fever Pitch features a scene in which Paul (Colin Firth) and Steve (Mark Strong) are seen playing and discussing Subbuteo, with one player playing as the (contemporary) 1989 Arsenal F.C. team, and the other playing as a classic Arsenal team from 1971.
  • British band Half Man Half Biscuit wrote a nostalgic tribute to Subbuteo on their (ACD) album titled "All I Want For Christmas Is a Dukla Prague away kit." It is common for fans of the band to wear old-fashioned Dukla Prague away kits at the group's gigs.[5]

So he sent his doting mother up the stairs with the stepladder,

To get the subbuteo out of the loft, He had all the accessories required for that big-match atmosphere, The crowd and the dugout and the floodlights, too, And you'd always get palmed off with a headless centre-forward, And a goal-keeper with no arms and a face like his, And he'd managed to get hold of a Dukla-Prague Away Kit,

'Cos his uncle owned a sport shop and he'd kept it to one side.

  • Northern Irish band The Undertones referenced Subbuteo, and in particular the tricky skill of flicking your players correctly, in their hit song "My Perfect Cousin" (1980):

He always beat me at Subbuteo 'Cos he flicked to kick And I didn't know

Oh my perfect cousin ..

When I was a child I played subbuteo on My table then I graduate to studio one

  • In the episode "The Labrador" of the 2011 series of Outnumbered Pete attempts to bond with his son Jake by playing him in a game of Subbuteo.

See also

References

  1. ^ The Times: Table-topping star of the big flick-off. Version of 2006-OCT-16. Retrieved 2007-AUG-12.
  2. ^ Cult Football. September 2010.
  3. ^ Cult Football. September 2010.
  4. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397004/
  5. ^ http://www.elyrics.net/read/h/half-man-half-biscuit-lyrics/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-a-dukla,,prague-away-kit-lyrics.html

Further reading

  • Tatarsky, Daniel, "Flick to Kick, An Illustrated History of Subbuteo", Orion, 2004. ISBN 0-7528-6083-6
  • Translated into Italian: "Subbuteo. Storia illustrata della nostalgia", Isbn Edizioni, 2007. ISBN 88-7638-065-5
  • Payne, Richard, "Fifty Years Of Flicking Football", Yore Publications, 1996. ISBN 1-874427-02-X
  • Adolph, Mark, "Growing up with Subbuteo", SportsBooks Limited 2006. ISBN 1-899807-40-3
  • Willetts, Paul, "Teenage Flicks Memories Of The Sub-Beautiful Game", Dexter Haven Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-1-903660-02-7
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