Luton Town - Subbuteo Zombie

A smashing hand painted Luton Town zombie side is today's pick. I acquired this team minus one player and was lucky enough to find another from a member of the Independent Subbuteo Forum.

If you haven't visited the site then you should check it out here - ISF

Reference 169 - Luton Town

Accessories - C135, VIP Presentation Set

A little bit of a teaser this one. Here we have a pitch side figure from the VIP Presentation set. The lady in question is widely accepted as the Queen Mother - however, I think it is more likely Katherine Duchess of Kent.

She is usually painted in dull grey colour. as many of the pitch side figures seem to be, however she also turns up in this pale blue number, with fetching royal blue shoes.

C135 VIP Presentation Figure 

An interesting fact is the Duchess, a football fan, has presented the FA Cup more than any other member of the Royal family. So who better for SSG to immortalise in plastic?

Katherine Duchess Of Kent

Moulded Heavyweight - The Scarecrow

Continuing with the moulded heavyweight theme - here are the figure type commonly know as 'scarecrows'. I think they look like George Best or maybe Charlie George.

As in the last 'classic heavyweight' post, the sock variation is evident.

As far as I can work out these figure types were present in the late 60's early 70's and were therefore available side by side with the other moulded styles. Often box sets would include different figure types in the same box, usually full teams, but occasionally just the odd figure.

Generic Red Moulded Scarecrow

Generic Red Moulded Scarecrow (with sock top)

(The Goalkeeper is a Santiago Replica I painted up to accompany the team.)

If you have any extra information about these figures I'd be delighted to here from you.

Tracksuited Teams C.103.

I've already touched on the tracksuited teams in a previous post but felt like I needed to add some extra and better pictures.

Below is a sky blue team in their later version box. I believe the C103 teams came in two different styles of box. This particular item is one of my favourite Subbuteo accessories, it's also in mint condition (which is always nice!)

C103 - Track-Suited Team - Aesthetically beautiful but totally useless

C103 - Track-Suited Team Box 

Lovely isn't it!

Another angle

Another picture of the red C103 (I didn't like the last one I posted up). A couple of these guys are really bent over - I think, even in this picture, you can see than the un-balanced nature of these teams would make them impossible to play with. 

C103 - Track-Suited Team Red 

I've also included a picture of the four tracksuit teams available. Base colours and discs vary, but are usually the team colour on the outer plus a white inner. These can be reversed as seen on the sky blue team below. In addition to this the figures are either made from coloured plastic or can be white with the kits painted on (as seen on red player).

C103 - Track-Suited Teams

I'm not expert on these items, so if you can shed any additional light on the 103 Track-suited teams then please email or add a comment.

Heavyweight - Ref 1

I'm a little short of time tonight and considered not posting, but I'm quite pleased with how the blog is going and wanted to continue making daily entries. So without further ado.

Peter Upton has done the leg work on the sides represented by reference 1. So thanks to him for the list of teams. Picture by yours truly.

1960's - Arsenal, Bournemouth, Barnsley, Charlton, Lincoln City, Liverpool,  Manchester United, Middlesbrough , Nottingham Forest, Brechin City, Stiring Albion, Doncaster Rovers, York City, Aberdeen, Third Lanark, Wrexham. 1970s Workington, Cliftonville, Portadown

In France it was simply sold as 656.412 Equipe Rouge. 

Reference 1 - Generic

Heavyweight Subbuteo - Manchester City

I watched a great film last night called 'Once In A Lifetime' - it wasn't about the Talking Heads funnily enough but the New York Cosmos. Released it 2006 it's an absolutely fascinating insight into the team, rammed full of stars like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia and Carlos Alberto and also the North American Soccer League and the men who made it possible. I heartily recommend.

I'd like to follow up with a Cosmos Subbuteo post, but I don't have them immortalised in plastic (something I may well remedy). Instead I am presenting some Heavyweight Manchester City teams.

The link between the two sides is Dennis Tueart, who was in the film and of course the news announced last month of the deal between City and the New York Yankees to bring the Cosmos into the MLS.

Reference 5 - Manchester City - Sky blue outer

Reference 5 - Manchester City - White outer

Santiago Replica Team, with kicking Goalie

Subbuteo On The Web

The balldejour blog features an interesting article on Subbuteo. It is a few years old now but still well worth the read.

A bit of Subbuteio related browsing, you know how it is, threw up these great images of Eden Hazard and the ball boy incident as created by Terry Lee.

NGD Solo League - New Additions

A lot of thought has gone into the playing strips of the NGD teams. First and foremost I couldn't see the point of replicating a kit that was already available in the Subbuteo range. If I did then I may as well just use those, rather than design new ones. I also decided that I wanted to put together different base combinations, ones rarely, if ever, seen. The NGD sides are painted on Santiago figures and that range includes 16 base colours. Therefore it is possible to create 256 (if my maths is correct) combinations. If Top Spin replica teams are added to the league in the future, these have different colours and base shades, therefore the possible combinations increase even further - to well over 500.

I feel I've created a visually appealing range of teams that offer something a little different. My ego is not so large, however, that I am blinkered to the fact that most of the kits probably already exist somewhere in the world.

When developing the kits I have shied away from what I would call 'standard kits' preferring to include more stripes, bands and sashes than would usually occur. I've also added less fashionable colours, i.e. yellow has become a popular colour in the NGD. In real life the colour occurs regularly as trim and in away kits but is not a home strip staple.  

Two new additions to the league are pictured below. In my younger days I played for the real life counterparts of both. I have modified the kits to fit in with my design ethos and am pleased with the outcome.

Ford Celtic - Home

AFC Litherland - Home

Litherland host Ford Celtic in the first round of this season's Solo Cup this week. Results to follow.

Accessories 16 - Pitch side figures

Whilst this is by no means all the pitch side figures available from Subbuteo, it does cover a number of sets (even if all the figures are not present). Some of them are quite lovely, others less detailed. The painting is by and large best described as average, it certainly wouldn't win any awards.

Various pitch-side figures 

Here we have the doctor figure from the manager sets. This shows the variety of colours used  (particularly bases) and the standard of painting this particular figure received.

SSG Doctor figure

NGD Solo League - Fazakerley FC

NGD will have a second division next season. I decided on the six new clubs months ago and have painted them up.  However, recently I created a team that caused me to have a rethink. I like my new team so much, that I decided to elect them into the league in place of another club. The team that failed to make the cut will have to remain a non-league side, for at least another season.

I was painting this team and wasn't sure where it was going. I had mixed a nice shade of blue and was keen to use it up. It could quite easily have ended up as a Ref 210 - Hambuger FC, the two strips, (as can be seen below) are obviously very similar. In order to give them a personality of their own I plumped for a pink shirt with white trim (it's actually much nicer in the flesh, the flash has done it no favours). I felt that the pink shirt gave it a retro feel, plus it looks killer on the base combination.

The name 'Fazakerley' just popped into my head after I based them up. So, as name and strip seemed to fit - a new team was born. Fazakerley is a suburb of Liverpool and in the north of the city, near Rice Lane. It was here that William Keeling's opened a factory to produce his table soccer game 'Newfooty'. Keeling's game was a rival of Subbuteo in the 1950's and is worthy of further discussion on the site...but not here and now. 

Fazakerley FC

I discovered that Everton wore a very similar kit in the 1900's - the similarity between the Goodison Park outfit and Fazakerley FC is purely coincidental however. The Toffee's strip, reproduced here. is taken from the excellent Historical Football Kits website (without permission). 

Everton FC - 1886-87

Fazakerley FC make their debut tonight in the NGD Solo Cup. In case you are wondering, the unlucky club who miss out on making their league debut are St Botolph.

NGD Solo League - Shrugborough Town Home

This is one of my favourite kits and is another team from my solo Subbuteo league - this team was born for season two of the NGD. They struggled, finally finishing eighth, but in doing so guaranteed a least one more season in the first division.

Painted onto flesh coloured Santiago figures and on Santiago bases,  I have stuck the players in with blu-tack which not only serves to keep the players in place (therefore negating the need to use glue), it has the added bonus of weighting the team slightly, so they play a little more closely to the original Subbuteo heavyweight bases.

Shrugborough Town

England 317 & 321 - Zombie England

England is, unsurprisingly, a very common team in the Subbuteo world.  As such it can throw up a number of variations. Here we see an away strip, machine printed with added hand painted trim. Amongst the home strips we have a hand painted version, pale short version and base variation.

Admiral was a cool kit manufacturer back in the mid seventy's and supplied a number of clubs. It's fair to say that many of the kits they went on to produce became iconic and reached legendary status. To my mind some of the best Subbuteo teams are the ones wearing Admiral. Aberdeen, Coventry, Luton Town and West Ham all wore classic admiral kits. Check out a more comprehensive range on John Devlin's fantastic True Colours website.

England greats Kevin Keegan, Trevor Brooking, Mick Channon and Glenn Hoddle wore the strips featured on the references 317 and 231 between 1974 and 1981. I got my own replica England home strip around 1976 as a birthday present, it was very expensive. I still remember my mum wanted me to choose a different kit, no doubt because of the high price tag, but I was an insistent and selfish little boy - sorry mum.

A great history of this and other England strips can be found at England Football Online.

Reference 321 - England away

Reference 317 - England home hp

Reference 317 - England home blank disc mp

Reference 317 - England home pale short

Reference 317 - England home white base

Accessories - TV Tower C110, Cameraman

I took this picture of the C110 cameraman and was quite pleased with it so decided to share. I cropped the image, so the whole tower is not visible, but liked it as it shows the figure in good detail. This is the later version of the set.

A couple of months ago, I was surprised to find out that Scalectrix released a TV tower that was virtually identical to the Subbuteo version, only in a much larger scale. I found an image on Vintage Toys and Games and have pre-produced it here without permission.

C110 - TV Tower Cameraman 

Scalectrix - TV Tower

NGD Solo League - Wolvendean Away

As a direct result of requests to see my solo league teams. I present the side that finished runners-up this season, Wolvendean in their change strip.

Wolvendean Athletic 2nd kit

Blackburn Lightweight

This Blackburn team was the first lightweight figures I ever saw. Although I never fell in love with the figure type, I did like this team as it was an aesthetic improvement on the zombie figure. I was disappointed when I got them home however, as they didn't seem to play well and made a hollow sound when flicked...not at all satisfying. I didn't add any other lightweight teams to my collection for years.

Reference 31 - Blackburn Rovers

Zombie - Paris FC

A very fine example of a hand painted Zombie Ref 306 - VFB Eppingen/Paris FC. 

I got this team approx fifteen years ago along with twenty or so other teams. The goalie has a disc fitting. I'm unsure if this is the original goalkeeper or a replacement. I'm guessing it should have be either a heavyweight or lightweight one on a bar. This doesn't detract however from a quite lovely team!

Mint 306 Box 

Ref 306 - VFB Eppingen / Paris FC

Ref 13 - Holland Subbuteo team

 - Borras hand painted zombie team - 

Reference 65 - United Kingdom

Hand painted zombie