On the face of it, a bit of a niche fanzine blog this time; Subbuteo and fanzines. However, as we will see, the two have been strongly linked since the start of the golden (goalden? – Ed) era of fanzines. This is the first of a trilogy of blogs about Subbuteo and fanzines, yes, there really is that much material to cover.
From the start
The very first issue of Off The Ball, the 2nd general football fanzine launched in the UK in 1986 had an “article” about Subbuteo called Ranj of the Rovers. The piece Includes such characters as the 4’11” goalkeeper Lofty “Titch” Warner, Ernie “Hammerfoot” Clegg, workhorse Willie Nilly and the chief scout of Arseham Rovers. It’s a piece “of its time” I’ll spare you the names of the rest of the team which veered into below the belt type teen humour.
I say “article” because in truth it reads like the fever dream of a teenage Subbuteo addict, a love letter to the game which of course it may have been, anything went in fanzines then. But what the hey, it’s a FANZINE with SUBBUTEO featured.
Back to the VERY start
The now sadly defunct website called Scotzine by Andy Muirhead had a fanzine called The 12th Man, one of a few greats run by Andy over the years. They produced a rather wonderful interview with the son of the man who invented Subbuteo. Thankfully some copies of the 12th Man are preserved online[1] and you can read the full article in issue 5.
If you’re interested in learning more then Mark Adolph, the son of Subbuteo inventor Peter Adolph, wrote a book called “Growing Up With Subbuteo – My Dad Invented The World’s Greatest Football Game” and there is a wonderful short film interview with Mark here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_A0uYFJBMc
There are some great things highlighted in the article and film. If you know your Subbuteo history this might not be new to you but these facts are worth repeating.
- Peter Adolph used to frequently “bend the rules” when playing Subbuteo with his son
- He insisted on having the QPR team every time he played as he supported them.
- He sold Subbuteo to Waddingtons for £250,000, a HUGE sum of money in 1969 (equivalent to about £5.2m today)
- After that the relationship soured as he tried to make a knock off version of the game and sell that to them as well. An injunction ensued.
- On Peter Adolph’s headstone there is an engraving of the hobby falcon, Falco Subbuteo, the source for the Subbuteo name.
- Waddingtons sent a three-foot-high floral tribute in the shape of a Subbuteo player wearing the kit of Queen’s Park Rangers to his funeral.
As an aside, the beginnings of table Soccer using flick to kick figurines does predate Subbuteo. The National Football Museum in Scotland has records of a game called “The Newfooty Game” which was “First manufactured in Liverpool in 1929 by Mr William Lane Keeling, Newfooty introduced the idea of flicking the figures with a finger towards the ball and was the initial table football game, long before Subbuteo Table football.” Indeed Newfooty limited had a patent from 1929 to 1939 before the Newfooty Limited company went bust in 1961 and in 1964 was taken over by its rival Subbuteo Sports Games Ltd. You can read more about this on Peter Upton’s excellent Subbuteo website http://www.peter-upton.co.uk/newfooty.htm
Nottingham
Launched by teenager Dave Hindley, Flickin n Kickin covered both the Notts County and Subbuteo, a love of football and flicking small plastic figures in print form. Issues of this fanzine are hard to come by but apparently they received a letter from Subbuteo makers Waddington’s congratulating them on the fanzine.[2]
There must be something about Nottingham and Subbuteo as very recently a new and still running Nottingham Forest fanzine appeared, heavily featuring Subbuteo, Trevor Francis Tracksuits[3]. Trev was known as a dapper figure in his heyday (well when you were the country’s first £1m footballer you would be I guess.) before adopting a more casual approach to clothing in his managerial years, perhaps mimicking Brian Clough.
The fanzine was launched in 2020 and still prints occasionally. Trev’ appears on issue 5 of the fanzine playing Subbuteo in a set up most kids (adults) could only ever dream of. WOW! The fanzine is by Dave Marples (formerly of the excellent Bandy and Shinty)
As if that wasn’t enough, they also did stop motion animations of famous forest goals using Subbuteo. Have a look, it is AMAZING!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNPdWB5ejTCN7MTuppbZoxQ
A beautiful thing, with all profits donated to local charities.
Yorkshire
Leeds famous fanzine Marching Altogether was highly focussed and vociferous in its fight against racism but the creators were also obviously very keen on Leeds United, using humour and cartoons to support their point of view.
Issue 6 saw them imagine a custom-made Leeds United Subbuteo team and it is magnificent. Thanks to our friends at the excellent Leeds United Nostalgia Flickr for sharing this.[4] The David Batty figure is perfect and the back 4 proves that Arsenal under George Graham were merely copying the mighty Leeds.
MAT acknowledge that the Subbuteo idea is ‘ripped off’ from the Blow Football fanzine and their Subbuteo feature has thankfully been preserved in the brilliant 1989 fanzine anthology “Get Your Writs Out!”. This book is well worth searching out, it’s “best of” format covering many of the classic fanzines of the time.
The Blow Football Subbuteo feature is simply magnificent, a true fanzine masterpiece. The Ian Ormondroyd, Tony Adams, Graeme Souness and Gazza figurines in particular have me cackling every time but ALL of it is superb. How the creators of this haven’t received more widespread acclaim for this is beyond me. It was copied many times and this wide ranging influence is something we’ll come back to in a later blog.
The Final Whistle
As always when researching a blog you get lead down a number of rabbit holes. As you would expect with the subject matter this time some very deep ones….
If you’re really feeling flush, some might say rash, there is a 1986 edition of the “classic” Italian Subbuteo fanzine “The Arrow” available on Ebay for £35 plus shipping, if you can persuade the owner to lift their embargo on the UK.
Not obscure enough for you? Look out for parts 2 and 3 of Fanzines and Subbuteo later and an early warning, I’m currently trying to put together a blog about the use of lego in fanzines.
[1] https://issuu.com/scotzine/docs/17277055-issue-5-of-the-12th-man
[2] https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2024/05/a-history-of-notts-county-football-fanzines/
[3] https://leftlion.co.uk/features/2024/05/a-history-of-nottingham-forest-fc-fanzines-brian-tricky-tree-trent-times-forest-forever-red-review-blooming-forest-ltlf/
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