Subbuteo Resume
My friend David Lee, who lived across the road from me and I were hanging out one day in his garden, when he asked me if I wanted to play him at Subbuteo? Not knowing what he was talking about, we went in his home and he set up the game in the family conservatory. I loved it! Already enjoying model railways, seeing the little football figures fascinated me, and we played all day! David showed me how to get an exercise book and write scores down!
At this point, I had a liking for Notts County, because another of my friends supported them. However, David supported Manchester United, and when he told me they would be playing in that season's F A Cup Final against Southampton, my fragile allegiances went over to United! Southampton beat them, but by then I was a confirmed United fan. I still think Bobby Stokes was offside; Rest in Peace!
A few weeks later, my Mum and I were visiting my Uncle Jack and Auntie Joan. I have no idea how the conversation got onto Subbuteo, but Uncle Jack asked me if I wanted my cousin Michael's set, as he never played with it any more? Did I ever!!!! No idea if my cousin was even consulted about this, and as we don't get on any more, I don't suppose it will ever happen now. Anyway, Uncle Jack brought us home in the car. I sat in the back seat with my boxed set minus the pitch, sat in my lap. The pitch was crammed into the car next to me, on a hardboard!
Dad and I had loads of fun playing in those times. Even though the teams were red and blue, we used them to represent absolutely anyone! His red team were inevitably Nottingham Forest when he played with them. Christmas came around that year, and I had been looking through the late 1960s team list which had come with the box set, picking out which teams and accessories I wanted. All my pocket money was also being spent on Subbuteo. I had new balls, referee and linesmen, a few more teams, including 100 Manchester United. On Christmas Day, I opened 5 Manchester City and 25 Celtic, and I remember putting the board on my parents' bed, and playing a solo game.
I was told by David that Redmayne and Todd, the Nottingham city centre sports store sold lots of Subbuteo, but somehow I never got round to visiting, until much later. Instead, I got most of my teams from the big Co-op in the city, Skills toy shop (pictured) or Diddyland which was a local toy shop to our village.
I remember being in Skills one day and Dad and I were choosing a new team for me. We were lifting the lids of those wonderful heavyweight teams and looking inside. One of the teams was 53 Rangers. I loved the blue bases and red disks and bought them. When we got home, I discovered one of the players was missing. We must have lost him while we were looking in the shop. We never returned to get him, and it wasn't until 2023, when I was buying spare players to replace broken ones, that I finally got the missing Rangers player! Only took just over forty years....
The big Co-op on Upper Parliament Street was always a treat. There was a large restaurant and sports department on the fourth (top) floor, and after impatiently scoffing my lunch, I would always enjoy going to look at the range of Subbuteo teams and accessories. It's probably my memory playing tricks on me, but in my mind, the aisle with teams on must have extended to around 15 feet!!! I remember buying amongst others, 55 Anderlecht, 74 Aston Villa, 77 Wolves and 205 Cardiff City from here.
Even holidays didn't prevent me from adding to my collection. A family holiday at that time was a week in Great Yarmouth, and I remember buying 16 Arsenal and a scoreboard while we were away!
By now, I was itching to set up a league. I had been playing random matches using my teams, kneeling on the carpet on the landing (where games were played for many years as it had the least bumpy surface). I had purchased a copy of the football magazine called "Scoop", which nobody remembers! In there was a very early fantasy league, where players in the real league were scrutinised for goals, assists, saves etc and the teams they played for won points (sounds familiar, huh?) I loved the team names. I decided the team names would make up the 12 teams in my first league.
They were Midlands Select, Southcoast City, Thames Southern, Manchester Town, Northern Town, Glasgow Wanderers, Birmingham United, Pool City, North London, East England, Leeds District and Eastern Town. I remember Midlands Select were top of my new league and Northern Town were bottom when I abandoned it. I was playing every single match and it was taking me forever to get to the end of a week's fixtures! Early experiences taught me that I would need to come up with some other way of simulating some of the matches.
My friend Adrian, who again I later fell out with, (there's a theme developing here) and I decided to set up a league using the 22 teams in the Central League, which was basically all the reserve teams playing in the 1970s and 1980s. Dad had been taking me to see Nottingham Forest Reserves on a regular basis, as with the crowd trouble rampant at the time, he thought it was too dangerous for me to go and see first team action. He did relent in the close season though and I got to see Nottingham Forest play both Tampa Bay Rowdies and New York Cosmos (minus Pele). Another time, we even went to the Trent End at Half Time, when Forest were playing Man United. My Dad and I somehow managed to get over an open and unattended turnstile and I saw the second half. All I can remember is seeing Gary Bailey in goal in front of me. But I digress.
Adrian and I picked eleven teams each, and started buying teams to complete our league set up. Seems we were too optimistic. We ended up buying the teams but didn't even complete a single round of fixtures!
Instead we went our own way, and set up two different leagues, one each, for solo play. I had two divisions of eight teams, using some of the teams I had bought for the Central League that never got off the ground. Manchester United had to be in there! I remember this season was completed, with United as champions, naturally, and then the second season was abandoned.
At this point, I was an avid reader of "Roy of the Rovers" comic. I still love remembering the stories, especially the main Roy story. One issue, Subbuteo had an advert in there to buy a Melchester Rovers team. I had to have it, and eagerly sent off my postal order, shortly before we went to Teignmouth on holiday. The team was waiting for me when I got home! A new league was in order, and the previous one above, was abandoned. (Well Leeds United were winning it anyway!)
This became my longest running childhood league, running to three complete seasons. Melchester Rovers played teams such as Tynecaster, Carford City, Portdean, Redstoke and arch rivals Melboro! I got very immersed in this league, and did team selections , goalscoring charts etc. I even transferred in some made up players and sold some Melchester legends! I would play a game every morning before school on the landing. I'm sure Mum must have hated having to watch where she was walking as she stepped on Mel Park, while getting up and going downstairs!
While all this was going on, I was still collecting. One day at school, Adrian, Ian and I got together. I had recently got Ian into Subbuteo and he was as mad for it as we were. It helped that his parents had bought him a fantastic Stadium Edition for his birthday. We knew John Menzies in the Broad Marsh shopping centre had a sale on teams (which by now had turned into lightweight teams, rather than the heavyweights I loved). Somehow I didn't purchase many Zombie teams. Clearly they were as unpopular then as they are now!
Again, I digress. We went to Menzies, and each bought a team. Mine were 194 Crystal Palace. The princely sum of £1.25! Just along the way was the Broad Marsh branch of Skills the toy shop. So we decided to look in there at teams as well. We didn't see any we wanted, and as we were leaving, I read a sign on the door which said something along the lines of children would not be allowed in, unless accompanied by an adult. We realised we'd broken their rules, and ran out of the shop and down the escalator, laughing. At the bottom, we stopped to regroup and chat, when suddenly a Skills sales assistant arrived and told us we needed to return to the store! We were wrongfully being suspected of shoplifting, as we'd run away from there. We felt people watching us, as we were escorted back to Skills. We explained what had happened, and showed them our team purchases from Menzies. I don't think they fully believed us, even though our teams clearly had John Menzies price labels on, and we had receipts, but we were allowed to leave.
That experience permanently put any thoughts of a life of crime out of my young head!
The three of us decided to set up a small league to play each other, and together with a fourth lad, Pete, we got the league ready. My team were called Keyworth Buteo. They played in 205 Cardiff City strip. I lost my first three games. The third game I lost 7-2 and had a strop. I am ashamed to say that it was the end of our league, and also the end of my friendship with these three lads, as they wanted nothing more to do with me.
I set up my final league after that. It was a solo league, and used 350 Southampton, an all too familiar lightweight team. The team would be called Northcastle United, and they played against other invented teams. I tried to do the team selection, goalscorer thing which I had started with my earlier Melchester Rovers league, and to be fair, Northcastle played two full seasons.
It was the mid eighties and by this point, my interest had started to wane. I had been bullied quite badly at school, had my exams coming up and was a very anxious teenager. I lost interest in almost everything except my model railway, and the Subbuteo was packed away. Over the years I did try and set up leagues again, but quickly lost interest.
In the late eighties, I went through a phase of collecting Italian teams, which coincided with the Italian league being broadcast on Channel 4 on Sunday afternoons. I got 57 AC Milan, 58 Inter Milan, 72 Genoa, 398 Sampdoria and 789 Pescara, among others. Then in the early 2000s the teams came out again, as I joined the East Midlands Alliance, a Subbuteo league based in Newark, Notts; run by Trevor Arthur. I wasn't very good. I had trouble scoring, but no trouble at all conceding! My team was 78 Plymouth Argyle / Coventry City Away kit. Still, I enjoyed playing there, and began a friendship with Trevor, Colin Fletcher and Simon Bryan; friends I still have today. Then I agreed to go to a tournament somewhere in South Yorkshire.
On that day, I found out just how poor I was. I lost 14-0 not once, but twice in my group games to different opponents! My other game I lost 5-0. That was the day I retired from Subbuteo, and this retirement lasted fifteen years. In that time, I created a website / excuse to list my teams and accessories.
One day, out of the blue, I noticed how much stuff was available on ebay. I started collecting again. I like lightweight teams, Zeugo teams and Paul Lloyd's Top Spin and Santiago teams. I started commissioning Paul to paint American MLS teams, USL teams and NASL teams. Paul's teams are excellent, and I decided I would have a go myself. I began with the NASL's Los Angeles Aztecs, and purchased a paint your own Zeugo team to create them.
I also got in touch with Mike Bradbury of the South Staffs League, as they were the nearest club, at the time, to Nottingham. I began to play competitive Subbuteo again in the South Staffs club. They played every third Sunday afternoon, and I made many friends there. The first season I finished second bottom, with eleven points. I was still a long way off becoming a good player! I enjoyed the camaraderie of these guys though, and made a good friendship with Mick Murphy. Two seasons later, I came seventh out of sixteen, with a very creditable 32 league points, and progressed to the second round of the Staffordshire Cup for the first time ever! I must have been improving.
Unfortunately, as seems to be the trend with me, Mike Bradbury and I had a major disagreement, which led to me quitting the club midway through my fourth season with them. For once, the reason for the disagreement was not of my making. I retained my friendship with everyone else at the club, I am glad to say.I quickly found a newly formed club in Leicester; the Leicester Foxes. I liked the look of their club, with its base in a sports centre, a bar, hot food and Sky Sports TVs. Not only that, one of my team mates is Trevor Arthur, the same guy I played with at the East Midlands Alliance, before my "retirement". The club was only formed in 2022 but we are already twinned with the American MOIsT club and my good friends Jeff Drake and Therron Thomas. MOIsT means Missouri, Ohio, Indiana and some of Texas, by the way. For more information on the club, see below At the end of 2023 it was the Foxes' privilege to welcome MOIsT player Therron to one of our club nights, and a great evening was had. By this point, the club had moved to another venue. It still had a bar and food could be ordered, but alas, no Sky Sports TVs.
Andy Fake and I are also good friends, and as well as running the ISSL (see below), Andy runs the North East Midlands Senior Subbuteo League and his own Chesterfield Subbuteo Club. I played for a while in the NESSL, which had six players including ourselves and my old Mate Colin Fletcher. There is a massive gap between the other five players and me. In my first season, I lost all my ten games, didn't score once and conceded almost forty goals. In subsequent seasons, my performance has not been much better! I eventually withdrew from the league and who should take my place but another old Mate, Simon Bryan!
The International Solo Subbuteo League was created on Facebook a couple of years ago, and I am proud to say I am one of the founding members and also one of the administrators. Andy Fake does all the hard work, organising leagues and fixtures, and I just dip my toe in to help out now and again, and ride on his coat tails! The ISSL is a great success! We have more than 150 members in our league. My teams are Manchester United, currently in Division 1, and Pescara, currently in Division 3. Many people around the world are involved, playing solo Subbuteo games and submitting them to Andy, so that he can formulate league tables. Manchester United won the ISSL Cup in Season 1, beating Aston Villa 5-2. The game was played by Vangelis Scotinotis in Athens. Then in Season 3, United won the Second Division by three points to gain promotion. United successfully won the Division 1 title in Season 8. Pescara have had less success, but have gained promotions from Division 4 to Division 2. They are now back down in Division 3. My brother Richard also used to have two teams, AC Milan and Fulham. However he is no longer a member.
The latest friend to come into my Subbuteo world has been Trevor Allen. Trevor organises a less formal set of leagues, for Heavyweight and Lightweight teams; modern teams and old style flat figure teams. I have Northcastle United in the first league, playing in 72 Cagliari lightweight colours. Craiglang FC are in the modern league playing in Zeugo 283 Bristol City colours and my flats team is Rassburg Twenty which are represented by 20 Hamilton Academicals. Quite a few beginners come to Trevor's and enjoy the evening, including my boss! Recently I swapped the teams around. Northcastle United now have modern Raptor bases with self painted red and white stripes and blue shorts, similar to Atletico Madrid. Craiglang meanwhile, now play as a Top Spin team, in the colours of Toronto FC.
And that's where we are today. I currently have almost 300 teams. Heavyweights, Zombies, Lightweights, Hasbros, Top Spins, Zeugos, Santiago and even a Subbuteo flat team. I have a small selection of self painted teams on Raptor Bases, and another United Mate Shaun Dunne, gave me a home and away Accrington Stanley team on Raptors as well. My Top Spins are my favourites. They remind me very much of the Heavyweights, which were my first collected teams. I was often being asked by my South Staffs team mates to try flat, modern bases. I have a few, but as Andy Fake of the ISSL says; it's like playing glorified shove ha'penny! However, I have begun to play competitive games firstly with Zeugo flat based teams, and in the last year or so, with my Raptor based teams. My main team carry black and orange stripes, the strip of Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. My team is called "Frontier Burn".
Since starting to play in the South Staffs League, the Leicester Foxes and the ISSL, I have made new friends and attended Subbuteo collectors fairs. Ebay is always a good source of stuff, both new and second hand, filling in some of the gaps in my collection. Then I cannot rate Paul Lloyd's Top Spin teams more highly. They bring me back full circle to the teams I collected in the 1970s and 1980s. There are also great Youtube videos to see. My favourites are "Youbutteo" by Stewart Grant and "Table Football Monthly" by Keith Littler, Danielle and Smiffy! Unfortunately, both have stopped producing new videos. I also enjoy seeing "Subbuteo Game of the Day" with Chris Fairley and David Hughes. While their Subbuteo skills may not be to everyone's liking, the fun and imaginative content of their channel really does appeal to me, and I like their videos a lot. I even appeared in one episode!
In 2023, with the help of the Leicester Foxes, we hosted our own Collector's Fair in a church hall on the outskirts of Leicester. It was very popular and we have made this an annual event. We have received a lot of compliments from traders and customers alike, and it feels great that so many little Subbuteo players find new homes and new leagues to play in!
Now what was that MOIsT thing all about? I am also an honorary member of the MOIsT League in the USA. This is a group of lads who get together in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana and some of Texas (hence MOIsT) several times a year to play in tournaments among their members. They make a full weekend of the tournaments and socialise as well, doing other things as well as playing Subbuteo, such as going to MLS and USL games, having barbecues, going out and having a great time. I am hoping to travel to St Louis in Missouri one year to take part in the Brick Tamland Tournament. I played Subbuteo against my good friends Jeff Drake and Therron Thomas in a games store in Indianapolis in 2018. Both beat me quite easily, but I did manage to get two goals past Jeff in one of the games! I first met Jeff in Preston a couple of years earlier, when his son had trials in Merseyside. Ian Drake is a football player who I would not be surprised to see gracing the fields of an MLS team in the future, if not playing at a higher level. He also had some trials for Feyenoord. He is currently playing to a high level at Northern Illinois University. I am pleased to be a member of MOIsT, even though I am unlikely to regularly play in their tournaments.
Finally, my Half Century League is a direct link back to those early leagues I played as a child. I think I love this game for nostalgic purposes, but also because it is great fun, whether played solo or against an opponent. The collecting aspect is great too. Many players and collectors seem to be around my age group also. I guess we are all very similar minded. I know the clubs are making efforts to get younger players involved, and I wholeheartedly support this. If the kids would move away from their computers for a while and give this game a try, I think the football fans among them would love it. You don't have to be brilliant (I'm not!) to enjoy Subbuteo. It's a game for all ages, male and female.
