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...

Recently I had an email exchange with a fellow solo player, mainly about different rules that we use, it was surprising just how similar our own particular methods were but we were in total disagreement about fouls on the field of play. He insisted that a foul was only committed if an attacker struck an opponent and then went on to hit the ball, and if it struck an opponent without striking the ball, all that happened was a change of possession. From my point of view that’s not my interpretation or never has been. So I asked the obvious question how he had come this assumption of foul play? “Because it’s in the rules” was his reply. Now bear in mind this particular player is in his late 40’s and bases his knowledge of the game on the 80’s rules, which as a rule-set I must admit I’ve never seen let alone read. So probably it was about time I did . The 80’s Rules Known as the “Green Sheet Rules” I managed to obtain a set in PDF format and had ...

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...

It’s been a while since my last post, I’ve had a few problems and issues over the last couple of months that needed my attention, But in that time I have managed to get season 2 of the Bonfire Alliance solo league underway. Back in May I discussed my ideas and changes I was going to make for the forthcoming season which were mainly centred around the way that defensive flicks are implemented. The ideas and changes were made because I wanted to decrease (if I could) the goal tally without decreasing the amount of goal scoring chances, because like everyone else on planet Subbuteo the more I played, the better I became, the more goals I was scoring. I wanted to reduce the goal tally slightly to make the scorelines  a little more realistic. (A 3-3 draw now again looks exciting but not every match). So I began the Season with a string of friendlies to get used to the changes but felt that they were not working as well as I envisaged. So it was ba...

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...