How Subbuteo ended up for sale in small quantities in Memphis TN is a total mystery, one probably involving a comedic, movie-like shipping mix up where Memphis got some weird little table soccer game from Europe and a toy store in Belgium got a bunch of kilos of blow. It’s way less a mystery how I got Subbuteo as a gift—some adult (maybe my Dad) asked the same question I ask now when I holiday shop for kids: “Christ on a corn dog, I don’t know…what the hell do kids like?” I loved soccer and had been playing since I was three, so when he or whoever came across a Subbuteo set, gift problem solved.
I started with the two teams, the red and the blue, that came with the original set, then ordered two more teams (England’s Crystal Palace and Holland’s Feyenoord) because I liked their uniforms. But I soon stopped playing, probably having discovered BMX.
Fast forward twenty years and I found myself working with a guy from London who’d also played Subbuteo as a kid (which made more sense…he was from London). We got excited, drank a few beers, bought new teams, set up a Subbuteo pitch in a corner of the office, and blew off a lot of work over the next few months.
Well now, lo and behold, there’s a Subbuteo documentary called “Subbuteopia” coming out soon.
