Solo FA Cup 70-71 - Teams Round Up 4

Solo FA Cup 70-71

Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

WEST BROMWICH ALBION

WEST HAM UNITED

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS

This concludes the First Division teams that took part in the FA cup in 70-71 Season.

Solo FA Cup 70-71 - Teams Round Up 3

Solo FA Cup 70-71

Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, Stoke City.

MANCHESTER CITY

MANCHESTER UNITED

NEWCASTLE UNITED

NOTTINGHAM FOREST

SOUTHAMPTON

STOKE CITY

Solo FA Cup 70-71 - Teams Round Up 2

Solo FA Cup 70-71

Derby County, Everton, Huddersfield, Ipswich, Leeds, Liverpool.

DERBY COUNTY

EVERTON

HUDDERSFIELD TOWN

IPSWICH TOWN

LEEDS UNITED

LIVERPOOL

Solo FA Cup 70-71 - Teams Round Up 1

Solo FA Cup 70-71
Arsenal, Blackpool, Burnley, Chelsea, Coventry, Crystal Palace.

ARSENAL

BLACKPOOL

BURNLEY

CHELSEA

COVENTRY

CRYSTAL PALACE

Solo FA Cup 70-71 - History Part 2

As I wrote in a recent post planning the Solo Cup has been a lot trickier than I expected. I anticipated from the start that I would have to do some research and then paint up some teams. What has proven more difficult, however, is making decisions about which original HW Subbuteo teams to use to represent the different teams. There are far fewer teams that are exact matches in the SSG catalogues than I originally thought.

An example of this is illustrated by today's post showing six first division teams from the 1970-71 season. The Arsenal, Blackpool and Chelsea teams are all original Subbuteo teams - however, none of them match the teams they correspond to exactly - as the 'real life' teams had trim variations. It has been a major headache and one which I have approached on a team by team basis.

I have shyed away from 2nd kits totally and at this stage haven't even worked out what colour clashes are thrown up by the draw. I will do the necessary research for each tie and this will be ongoing until the completion of the competition. When information is not available (usually for lower league and non-league sides) I will either use the most historically accurate information I have i.e. a 60's or 80's kit or will use a neutral kit i.e. all white, all yellow.

Discussion of these decision making processes may indicate that taking on this project has been a negative experience - but that couldn't be further from the truth. I have really enjoyed my research and preparation and can't wait to start playing the competition. Any frustration generated has merely been because I want to get on playing the fixtures and not just talking about it.

Thanks to those people who have contacted me directly offering support. Please keep the comments coming I really appreciate you taking the time to write.

Solo FA Cup 70-71 - History Part 1

These past few weeks I've been planning a solo competition recreating the 70-71 FA Cup using (as far as possible) authentic 1970's equipment. It's involved a fair bit of research as I wanted to replay each of the opening fixtures using the kits that the teams wore on the match days whilst also using my existing collection and keeping true to the tradition of Subbuteo.

When I approached the project I had decided that I was happy to paint up any real life teams kits that I did not already have. In addition to this I would paint up a kit if they varied in some way from those represented in the 1970-71 catalogue. I was willing to use artistic license when it came to the interpretation of kits, as I figured that this was 'the Subbuteo way'. It is well known that SSG produced teams in their catalogues that did not match up with actual team kits. By way of illustration the 1970-71 Subbuteo catalogue lists the following teams as reference 9. Southampton, Sheffield United, Brentford, Derry City and Athletico Madrid.

Reference 9

In 1970-71 Southampton's kit matches up, but the others do not. My brackets show what the real life teams actually wore. Sheffield Utd (white socks), Brentford (white socks) , Derry City (white socks, maybe even white shorts), Athletico Madrid (blue shorts and blue socks with red tops). To add confusion, in collector's circles ref 9 is most frequently referred to as Sunderland (a name that doesn't even feature in catalogues from that year), they were at the end of a ten year stint of wearing white shorts in 1970 and residing at Subbuteo Ref 4.

This example gives an indication of the problems that are encountered when trying to match up SSG history with reality.  However, I wanted to use the SSG refs as much as possible in my project and decided to 'turn a blind eye' to certain inaccuracies if it meant the competition as a whole managed to maintain its 'authentic Subbuteo feel'.  An example of my concessions would be ref 42. Although in the catalogues it also represented Southend, Oldham and Montrose, there is little doubt that a 1970's audience would apply it most readily to Chelsea. In 1970-71 season the boys from Stamford Bridge wore blue shorts with a white stripe. Despite painting thousands of reference 42 teams this fact is ignored by SSG - they preferred to leave the shorts plain. It is interesting to note that Chelsea did not wear plain blue shorts until 1981.

Taking all the above into account I started to organise and paint my teams. It is a big task (I am still working on it as I write this). All the while I exercised a degree of flexibility, as following the catalogue slavishly wasn't an option due to the inaccuracies that lay within. So in essence what I ended up with is my interpretation of the 1970-71 FA Cup Competition the way Subbuteo intended, with just a few degrees more accuracy. 

Liverpool 1950

After a long wait I finally got my hands on some of the Santiago vintage figures.

So here we have Liverpool from the 1950 FA Cup final. I've made a representation of the badge, this is not something I usually do as I like to keep faithful to the way SSG produced the hand painted teams. I just felt that this team needed to have the badge included as it finished off the kit. However, after selecting this photo for the blog I'm not that happy with the results. They look better with the naked eye as the camera throws up all of the faults. So will likely revisit the badges in the future to tidy them up.

I've got one more team to do in these figures and I am considering two kits, it's going to be either the Arsenal kit from the 1950 FA Cup Final or the Burnley kit from the 1947 final. I'll post them up when I've finished them.

Liverpool FA Cup Final 1950