Solo Subbuteo 101

Following on from my previous post, I did a little delving, as well as receiving some surprising information about what constitutes a foul in open play. Firstly I’ve studied the FISTF rules, as heavy going as these rules appear, broken down they will appear familiar to anyone that has or does play the Subbuteo rules of the mid 70’s, those rules in particular were very similar to the rules I played in local Tournaments at that time. OK FISTF have put a slightly different twist on things, including in my honest opinion an offside rule that is way more, shall we say complicated than it probably needs to be, and the rules that state, if a player strikes another player before the ball it is a foul, but it goes on to say, If a player strikes another player and misses the ball it’s a back. Now that addresses my concerns of players having the ability to take out an opponent with a deliberate foul with no consequence, instead the play is reset and you loose posse...

By my reckoning Subbuteo as a brand will be 75 years young in 2022, I’m led to believe that the game was launched in 1947 by Peter Adolph as a rival to the already produced Newfooty, and Subbuteo being the new kid on the block due to good marketing and innovation by Peter Adolph, became not only a rival but the dominant game. If you want to know more about it’s history there are some great sites out there who have done the research,  Subbuteo Tribute Website is one, so I’m going to stop there for fear of repeating the hard work that others have put in. What I would like to do is discuss a few of the many accessories that have come and gone throughout the 75 years that I have had the pleasure of using and some that didn’t quite live up to the hype.   May I Introduce Warren Brookes, or Wazza for short. Wazza was a mate of mine, whose parents were lets say affluent “Middle Class” types, Wazza’s Dad had a Jag, their house had a...

When I started playing Subbuteo in the late 60’s / early 70’s the only teams you could get your grubby little hands on were either the flats or the 00 scale heavyweights, I played with both at Club level, but my favourite was, and still is the Heavyweight figure of the 70’s with it’s iconic pose, complete with a bar to fit in it’s base. To me at that time they just looked the part, they lived and breathed in a miniature world. So on my return to the game these were the player types I wanted to play with. I looked around the second hand market and found some great examples, and some really mind boggling prices. A team C100 back in the day was about £0.50p which would equate to around £7.00 today. I’m now looking at prices of £25 upwards for anything half decent. Now I’m not a collector, but I wanted heavyweights and didn’t want to pay the often exuberant second hand prices. After looking around I found new products in the style I wanted, from various manufacturers like Sa...

This time I want to revisit a topic I touched on a couple of months ago Solo Goalkeeping. I watched the December edition of  Table Football Monthly  on YouTube, and saw a Solo Goalkeeper tested. I had already ordered a set of those Bad Boys, literally a couple of days before the December edition aired. Has they had not yet arrived, I was interested like many solo players to see them in action. They duly arrived after Christmas, and once the box was opened I was a little underwhelmed, the description on eBay said some assembly required what it failed to mention was complete assembly and that glue would be necessary to complete this task, to give you an idea of the contents of the packet I’ve inserted a photo below.   The assembled Keeper is constructed from the component parts on the right   It would have been better in my opinion if the keepers could have some way clipped or snapped together to make them playable rather than glueing a rather loose...

I’ve just purchased a few La Leggenda lightweight teams without bases, to compliment my collection of Santiago heavyweights. They were just teams of 10 outfield players at a very reasonable price with no box. As I’m not really a collector of Subbuteo, the lack of bases, box and goalkeeper was not a consideration for the purchase. What it would allow me to do however was assemble a few lightweight teams to try out, and could they be integrated into my solo league and compete with the heavyweights without any bias for either.   First we need bases   I really like the players on pegs as basing them is very simple there are many bases new and used around to choose from. I wanted something comparable to the heavyweight base, I wasn’t really interested in the modern flat varieties, I at least wanted bases that could possibly allow some curl as that's the way I like to play. So after looking into what was on offer I opted for the spitfire base...

To play a decent game, one needs a few things, teams, goals, balls, and some kind of playing surface, and to be honest from my point of view the better the playing surface and ball, the better the game. Modern pitch offerings are all reasonably good, apart from the nylon versions, I own one of these and to be honest they are a far cry from the original Subbuteo baize pitches of old. At least the originals could be ironed, washed with care, and lay pretty flat. Astro or Baize   Many years ago my grandfather made me a table on which he stuck the pitch down, now bear in mind at that time in the early 70’s he had built himself a ¾ size snooker table, and used a similar principle with my Subbuteo table (minus the cushions and the pockets, or things would have become interesting). I consider myself very lucky to have had such luxury, I was able to play off the floor on a surface that was flat, and to be honest it played very well. My advice to any...