Swansea Zombie - Ref 236

As it is Hallowe'en what could be better than a fine example of a Swansea City hand painted zombie team?

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

Zombie Leeds?

Missing the zombie posts? Not so many this last couple of weeks! Here is a reference 21 to slake your thirst.

Reference 21 - Leeds (plus one)

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

Zombie 28's?

It's the last day of the month, so we see 'zombie month' draw to a close. I will continue to post zombie pictures in the coming months but the focus with now change. June will be the month of...ah! Well, you'll just have to wait and see.

I know that people are checking in regularly to keep up-to-date with the site, which is appreciated. Please feel free to comment - I've had almost 2500 page views in six weeks but nothing much on the comment front. Is there anything you want to see, say or ask?

To round off May here are a couple of delectable zombie sides for your perusal. The top side is one of those mystery sides - it could be a 28 or a 174. I've picked up a number of Australia sides over the years as they were one of the few available teams in NZ, this one was unboxed however and features an armstripe, so is just  as likely a ref 28. Though, ref 28's usually have short stripes and this team is missing them...so therein lies the mystery. The other side is definitely a 28 plus a couple of spare, well worn, mates on different colour inners.

Reference 28/174 - Norwich variation or Australia hp

Reference 28 - Norwich City hp

Italy Zombie

I've already posted the machine print, here is the hand painted version.

Ref 166 - Italy hp

Scottish Zombies

Today's post features a couple of Scottish zombie teams. Aberdeen hand painted and also Dundee. The latter are a machine painted side with shorts and trim added. These type of teams turn up fairly regularly in the zombie world - but one should always be on the lookout for a repaint. I know both of these sides are kosher as they came in referenced boxes.

Reference 193 - Aberdeen hp

Reference 196 - Dundee hp

1970's Melchester Rovers

A first for the blog today.  A team that was neither painted nor is owned by me.

This 1970's Melchester Rovers is the handiwork of Matt Holmes. Matt has modded the figures with milliput to produce a fabulous version of Racey's boys.

Melchester Rovers - modded zombie team

Wolverhampton Wanderers Zombie

This Wolves and Borussia Dortmund Zombie was one of the first c100 teams I owned, buying this and Coventry 206 on the same day. I remember being disappointed with them, but bought them anyway, pocket money HAD to be spent. The problem was, I was brought up on the HW figure and the difference between the two figure types was just too great. 

I've learned to love the zombie over the years - but it did take years. The hand painted ones are my favourite. I think my major dislike aside their looks is that most of the one I encountered had white inner discs. Of the 5 teams I owned as a kid only one broke that rule. It made it virtually impossible to distinguish the sides from one another.

This side has numbers on their backs - painted very badly but a much younger me. It also features a repainted goalie, a common feature of the teams I owned back then.

Ref 211 - Wolverhampton Wanderers mp

Middlesbrough Zombie

Middlesbrough & Bayern Munich kit as reproduced by SSG in 1979.

2013 Champions League winners, Bayern wore the same kit at Wembley in their 2-1 win against Borussia Dortmund.

Ref 219 - Zombie

Today's zombie is a hand painted Ipswich with an extra player.  Bobby Robson's side were performing well in cup competitions at home and in Europe when I first discovered Subbuteo. Despite this any games featuring blue teams were usually Everton, in Merseyside derby matches.

Ref 219 - Ipswich

Reference 1

When I get time I will clean off the adhesive residue from this super hand painted reference 1.

Reference 1 - Nottingham Forest hp

Ref 225 - Bristol City Zombie

The interesting thing about many zombie teams is they are very often machine printed and have some if not all trim added later by hand. This ref 225 is a good example of just that. Having checked Peter Upton's website it seems that when the lightweights came out this team also became Rouen and Denmark.

Another interesting fact is that my uncle used to play for Bristol City as a young man before signing for Liverpool. Sadly his career was ended with a knee injury. He only managed to make appearances for the reserves. Big ups to Uncle Stan.

Ref 225 - Bristol City hp

Coventry 206

It's a great kit the 206 - made by Admiral, this template was used by a number of teams in the 1970's and found it's way onto a fair few SSG teams too. Here it is in hybrid and mp zombie. 

Ref 206 - Coventry Hybrid 

Ref 206 - Coventry Zombie mp

Ref 231 Zombie

It's been a couple of days since I posted a zombie team.  This one is Czechoslovakia (or Luxembourg and Norway, if you prefer).  I've only ever seen this team as hand painted but I'm sure it was made as a mp too as it would lend itself well to that. A simple kit but a cracker nevertheless.

Ref 231 - Czechoslovakia hp

Zombie Watford

Today's Zombie team is Watford. I find Watford kits always transfer well onto table football teams. It is probably the colour combination that sets them apart. The Ref 203 is no exception.

The kit was reasonably short-lived and was worn by the clubs real life counterparts between 1976-79. As it was released on the cusp of the changes in figure type at SSG it is just as likely found in HW and lightweight.

Ref 203 - Watford hp

Welsh Zombie Miscellany

A classic kit that looks better on heavyweights but rendered here on those funny little Z-Men.

Ref 319 - Wales 

Ref 319 - Wales mp

Ref 319 - Wales hp

Ref 319 - Wales mp

Ref 3 Zombie Team

This is my 50th blog post. I have had some great feedback so far -but not so many comments...Oh, okay - just the one. Site views have been pleasing too at over 1500, in a little under a month. Including almost 150 one day.

So...on to the team. I've been trying to complete this team for a number of years (admittedly not very hard). So I was pleased this week, when I did just that. I feel this team works really well with the sky discs, it is usually presented with blue bases & white discs.

A piece of 'not so interesting' trivia - WBA were one of the last HW teams I bought when I finished collecting the first time around in 1983! These Z-Men cost me about the same as that team.

Ref 3 - West Brom mp

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

Zombie - West Ham

The Hammers in two flavours.

Ref 209 - West Ham mp

Ref 209 - West Ham hp