Subbuteo - Fantasy Flicking

I just can't stop thinking about Subbuteo. Subbuteo. Subbuteo. With these cool accurate miniature punching baglike players that you flick, that's correct, flick. Into the ball and/or into the opposing accurately-rendered, punching-baglike players. I mean, it's so cool. It kinda concentrates all your athleticism into your finger tip. And, boy, can you get good at it! And I don't mean just physically. But just like a real soccer player, you can get strategic, if you know what I mean, because, unlike the games it mirrors, we each get our own turn, unhindered. As if we were playing some sort of billiards. Billiards, you say? Indeed.

Do you have a Subbuteo set? Is there at least one Subbuteo-bound person on your Ch(anuka)/(ristmus) list? If not, it's not too late for a gift certificate from perhaps Subbuteo World.

The origins of Subbuteo? According to the Worthing Fivestar Table football league: "In the 1920s a Liverpudlian called William Keeling invented a game aimed at young boys called 'New Footy'. This consisted of flat, cut out cardboard figures which were mounted in hemispherical bases. The aim of the game was to use these players to flick a plastic ball into a goal. The game rolled along for many years, without any serious competitors - until shortly after World War 2.

"Subbuteo Table Soccer game was launched in 1947 by Peter Adolph to compete with New Footy - it was an instant success. In 1947 materials of all kinds were were in short supply and the original 'Assembly' set consisted of two cardboard teams, one celluloid ball and metal framed goals with paper netting. You will, no doubt, have realised that a playing pitch was not included. The instructions, however, advised the recipient of this early subbuteo game to '.....mark your pitch (chalk provided) on an ex-army blanket'..... and thousands did just that.

"But why Subbuteo? Hardly a name that was easy on the tongue, or relevant to football. Originally, the intention was to call the game 'The Hobby' but this could not get registered. However, the Latin for the bird of that name is Falco Subbuteo ..... hence 'Subbuteo'."

And hence, indeed, Subbuteo. Imagine going back to those days of paper netting and cardboard teams. Imagine your very own Subbuteo set - with milk bottle top bases. It is Junkyard Soccer at its finest. At your very fingertips.