Subbuteo

[Soundwave]

Hey guys,

Did anyone play this as a kid?

Was up in the parents loft again the other day & stumbled across my box of gear & I had actually forgotten how much I had...there's tons of the stuff up there.

I remember many awesome summer holidays spent in the parents garage playing leagues & cup competitions with mates.

Ah memories

So am I the only one who had glory days flicking little men (that probably doesnt read as well as it sounded in my head ) & arguing about Hand ball decisions around a rumpled piece of green cloth??

Neil

[toythatkills]

Absolutely! My memories mainly revolve around my mum refusing to iron the pitch so the ball was always going crazy, and general not-quite-knowing the rules. Awesome times!

I had a load of teams, I always wanted the stadiums and that but never could afford them. In hindsight, probably for the best.

So you've still got all your stuff? I propose an ntsc-uk meet in your parents' loft!

[Kieran76]

Loved Subbuteo. My brother and I played non-stop. We once did an entire World Cup including the qualifying groups for every single Federation. He had a little book in which he would work out fixtures and tables and we would ahve a set number of teams each. This took months and months, but it was ace. After we finished we felt a little lost so we went to doing The Scotish First Division. I always played best with St Johnstone while St Mirren were his best team.
As kids we even commentated on the matches and I use to look in the Sunday papers for the names of players from St Johnstone and the like.
Great days. I have a million other memories.

My dad stuck our pitch down on a massive board so we never had any creases.

[toythatkills]

I love this thread already

[prinnysquad]

I used to play on my dad's old 60s edition. The light green cloth was fantastic - so smooth - far better to play on than the 90s dark green one, which always felt cheaper and rougher. I still have all the old teams in the cupboard. The players were much heavier back then, too. They came in a closed light green box, with no viewing window, and iirc you had to write on the cover the team's name. Even when I was a kid loads of my dad's figures had a dollop of glue connecting the player to the base, after getting trodden on over the years.

We used to have a cup competition where he'd play as the home team and me as the away. I hated Sunderland getting knocked out, which usually happened, but we had to play properly!

[Kieran76]

Never bothered about the stadiums, although I did have floodlights. I remember buying a team from Beaties in Sheffield and seeing how many other clubs they could be. I use to love getting fancy nets, the really deep ones. Our board had velcro put where the nets went so no-one could ever cheat and wrag the net around. I also liked to play with an addidas tango. Anyone remember the plastic pitch they launched. They claimed you could keep in in tube and roll it out but that was cobblers. It was also far, far too fast.

[Flabio]

Our cat used to steal the ball, and sometimes the players. Made it quite difficult to ever finish a match.

[prinnysquad]

I had the scoreboard, but that was it. A mate had all the stadia and fences and crap. It looked great but got in the way, so we always used to end up shoving it aside.

I started off playing with the little (and i mean little! Malteaser size!) 60s orange balls in the more cuboid-shaped goals, which weren't very deep and had brown nets. Then I bought a deeper-netted goal and the larger footballs - adidas I think - a red one and a blue one. Every morning before school I'd take the net downstairs and practice curling the ball into the top corner of the net with my index finger, munching toast with the other hand. Then I'd finish off by turning the net away from me, and pressing down on the ball (like a tiddlywink) so it shot high over the net, hit the deck, and was propelled backwards in the the goal by the back spin. The same worked with sidespin. Simpler pleasures for a simpler time, but not lacking in skill!

[prinnysquad]

http://www.peter-upton.co.uk/suboldhw.htm

Wow, third box pictured - I've got quite a few of them. I remember those old wired goalkeepers! They had a little loop at the end of the metal to hold.

[toythatkills]

I remember buying a team from Beaties...

Wow, this entire thread is a blast from the past. That's the same chain I got my Subbuteo stuff from

[prinnysquad]

I got my stuff from a toy shop in Sunlun called Joseph's. It had a great Subbuteo section, I used to spend ages in there looking at all the teams. My dad also has the 1960s Subbuteo cricket set. That was tricky!

[toythatkills]

Well that's definitely worth breaking out for the World Cup, if it's still around!

[prinnysquad]

I think it's in the loft

I remember the bowler was the height of a normal subbuteo guy, but card, and on the back of his base was a little triangle of metal, that the ball rested into. You flicked him over face-first and it propelled the ball over his head towards the batter. The batter held a red-brown rod to the side of the crease, into which a plastic bat fitted. It was like two sides of a rectangle.

It was a bugger getting the ball to travel straight, and even worse trying to hit it.



You can see the bats top centre. The fielders had big green catching gullies in front of them on their stand, with a ball-shaped indentation.

[cutmymilk]

Used to play this all the time, though defo with the wrong rules. We used to simply take it in turns!!!

[ShadowDancer]

My dad mounted ours (brothers and me) on a board.

I used to have tons of stuff, not sure what happened to it.

Preferred my pool table and footy table. Sorry!