Subbuteo

Yeah, so were mine. An older version of those pictured.

 

I remember playing years ago when the power strikes were on.We always played on the floor and we used candles for floodlights.

 

I always played it on the floor, too. Our dog seemed to find it necessary to walk over the pitch every time I laid it out!

 

Me and my brother had a local league going in our dining room, he managed pilley argylle and I managed blacker hill rovers. He played in black and white stripes and I played in red, until I found some gold paint in the garage and then I was in all gold. My best player was david speedie and as in real life, he was a bit shorter than the others, due to a "kneeling" incident. The bostick holding him together meant he only had short legs, but by god he could tackle.

If anyone has got any of the older heavyweight version, boxed and in good condition, have a look on ebay, they go for a few quid.

 

I had my set from the seventies. I had a stand, scoreboard, TV gantry and even the Royal presentation party. I had a few teams, mostly bought second hand from Sharps at the bottom of Racecommon Road. When I moved to Liverpool my girlfriend had a little brother, so I took the set over to their house. This was just before the 1990 World Cup. There was a toy shop at the bottom of where the bus stands were in Liverpool that had a good range of Subbuteo teams, so I ended up buying loads of teams from the World Cup and we had our own little tournament. I must have ended up with twenty odd teams, all boxed, along with all the other stuff.

Anyway, we moved to Brighton and a short while later me and the girlfriend split up. It was at this time that I wish I had taken the Subbuteo stuff with me and not left it at her parents' house in Liverpool. I daren't guess what it would have all been worth nowadays. When I asked for it back I was told I was very welcome to go up to Liverpool and get it!

 

I loved subbuteo - only had a 7 a side version though.

Played test match cricket more though - anyone remember that. Filled in score books by the dozen

 

Ah yes the carelessly placed foot or knee. The squashed player was always a problem especially when it was a distinctive strip. I remember playing a game with an Inter Milan team and due to the aforementioned problem I had to play a sub wearing a completely different strip to the rest of the team. The other problem was missing players – somebody nicked (or hid) Cyril Regis just before an important match; my assault on the first division title never recovered that season.

 

So that would be a "Digby the biggest dog in the world" scenario?

 

Perfect analogy, mate. As much as I loved that dog, I just know he did it on purpose!

 

Of course he did! Just another doggy game to him wasn't it.

We had cats when I was playing my games and some of them were pretty good dribblers with that little ball. I had brown balls and white ones - always a good idea to keep an odd spare one around.

Another thing about the game - did you have that funny plastic ramp thing that was a corner taking aide? The player would strike the ball up the ramp and the idea was to land it on a player on the six yard line who would presumably "head" it in. Most of my attempts were like BFC ones though - hardly reaching the near post or sailing way over everybody and out for a throw in.

Ah, happy days. Fancy a game?

 

I could never get the gadget to work properly, either. Originally, the footballs I had were brown. I was quite chuffed when I got one of those continental balls, white with black markings!
If we were to play a game, there'll have to be some stipulations. It'd have to be on the floor. There can be no pets in attendance (so we can't play at my house). Finally, we'll need to set up a block and tackle to help raise my weary, aching, old body up off the floor after the game!

 

I was fairly lucky in the sense that I had a Norway team as well which were the same as the Barnsley team, without ora on the shirts, so I used one of them instead, and naturally, that meant Jan Aage Fjortoft came in for Clint Marcelle for the remainder of the season.

 

Same would go for me - too much time spent on the knees could lead to permanent paralysis!

Hey, I am really inspired by this thread and guess what. I have just been upstairs to retrieve my Lurpak butter box where my Subbuteo bits have been living for decades. It's all still there. Pitch, two goals, corner taking "machine", assorted balls and players. I only have two boxed sets of the "00 Scale" players, ie the posh new ones. Chelsea and Wolves. But then there is a box with all the other men in it. Some doctored "00" ones where I have messed about with airfix paint and a load of the old cardboard flat men in Barnsley, Chesterfield, Huddersfield and Sheff Utd style strips.

I'm busy writing at the moment (I am a freelance article writer) but when I have finished my current piece I am going to get them all out on the table and see who has survived! I suspect there will be a few cripples in there and maybe the odd one or two permanently stuck together with 40-odd year old glue

 

I'm certain I've still got mine in a box somewhere. We bought our current house just prior to our wedding 30 years ago and it was amongst my stuff I moved from my parents house. I'm hoping they'll be at the back of a cupboard, as I've not seen them since we moved in.

 

My main problem was when holding the keeper (on a stick) and moving him to save the ball. Used to end up dragging the nets with me towards the corner flag.

Toys 'r' Us used to have a full aisle dedicated to it. I had the ******* lot as a lad. Huggins of teams, stands, scoreboard, floodlights etc. But then the Nintendo and Sega's were released and that was that.


"fancy a game of Subbuteo?"

"nah.. I'm on Italia 90 ont mega drive"

"giz a gu"

 

I stopped playing it when I began to notice & appreciate the likes of Jenny Agutter, Raquel Welch, Valerie Leon, Susan George, Alexandra Bastedo, Kate O'Mara, Jenny Hanley and Sally Carr from a group called Middle Of The Road.