A hairy Argentinian with a link to Forest
A hairy Argentinian with a link to Forest
Long before children were welcomed into the world of computers (a science previously implemented at the work-place, computer aided design & manufacture, counting big numbers on the Stock Exchange, that kind of thing) they unwrapped such delights as Airfix models, toy soldiers, Tonka trucks, Matchbox cars etc.
Some things have made a remarkable come-back; Palitoy allowed some spark to re-introduce Action Man with untold accessories and costumes to keep the creative 'boy' adventurer happy. (Still floats unimpressively in the bath, doesn't he? None of those diver's outfits were any good, ‘specially the orange rubber oneSS).
We now accept Sega Megadrives and Nintendo as being our kids' source of imaginary sport participation. Sure, the graphics are great, the closest thing yet to playing the real thing! Apart from getting off your uninquisitive, crisp/coke packed backside, and trying the game out for real! Virtual fitness, leads to virtual slobs.
Anyway, my point is that no matter how lifelike these computer games get, and even with the stilted and predictable commentary from Motty and Des, they do not take the place of the one game that, for generations, allowed you to pick your team, in the colours you wanted to see them in, and play them in the formation you thought best (2-1-7 in my case). Compliment this with adding your own expert match-day analysis and you haveS..Subbuteo.
Younger readers may not have even seen, let alone played this, the original and best table football game in the w orld. The basic premise was this. On a green baize cloth, marked out exactly like a football pitch (but for a 25yd line signifying the shooting area) each player would arrange their team of 1 inch tall players in a suitable formation. The 'players' were mounted to weighted, smooth round bases, thus determining the method of play - flick to kick. To simulate all facets of open play, certain (bureaucratic) rules applied.
For instance, each 'player' could only have three touches before another member of his frail team had to have 'played'. Well that was daft from the start. In the late 70s we had wingers (no kids, not wingbacks) who would destroy defenders with pace and trickery - but were rarely doing it with just three (often poor) touches.
The 'flick' the game was built on was a skill in itself. No added propulsion using the trailing thumb could be allowed to give the nominated forefinger extra welly. Even when flicking Peter Lorimer! Ridiculous!
One of my favourite quirks involved a 'player's' ability to 'swerve', sometimes in a huge arc, around obstacle defenders to attack the ball. In extreme cases, the 'player' would leave the pitch close to his penalty area, career through what may have been rows 6,7 and 8 of the East Stand, re-entering the pitch beyond the halfway line. Bizarre. (When I got a little older, and my Dad mounted the fold-away pitch onto a permanent table-top surface, many a full-back went sky-diving after oft accessible balls down the line.)
Open play had its flaws, then, but it was as much a game of strategy as skill. As part of the research for this tedious piece, I did play a game of Fifa 97 and there is simply no opportunity to control an entire team at once. Subbuteo afforded you that control.
At goal kicks you would rapidly re-arrange the team to combat your adversary's 'players'. I was leaving one up front long before Venables thought of a Christmas tree formation. I was an only child. It's true, my ability to interact with others is perhaps unattributable to lonely hours of self amusement throughout my formative years.
But when you consider that, by the time I was 8 years old, I had commanded armies in Northern Europe, had built barrier-breaking aircraft, sent my Action Men on perilous Secret Service missions ( I was, and still am a Bond freak) and had managed England to their 3rd World Cup in as many months, the well rounded (if a little weird) individual you see today is an obvious bi-product of great toys and surreal possibility.
But as with sport today, it was the trials and tribulations that playing games like Subbuteo threw up, that account for so many more of a our character traits. With close school friends I would share this imaginary world of soccer management and discuss some of the great moves, possibly the way we do after our matches today. Somebody once said, "It is when Man looks into the abyss, that Man discovers his true character."
Now if you'd said that to me at age 8, you'd have got that confused, snot drenched puzzlement that only 8 year old boys can display. ButS. Goalkeepers were perhaps the weakest link of Subbuteo table football. You may recall that they were operated from behind the oversize goal net through use of a length of green plastic. Older generations tell me this was preceded by 00 gauge coat-hanger and offered all the control found in an Oval Office containing an elected man and a secretary with a thirst.
Such was the excitement when a 'player' entered the shooting area, that in trying to save the goalbound effort, four things would happen in rapid succession; (1) Person con trolling goalkeeper would go barking mad, imitating the keeper1s dive from one side of the Subbuteo goal, 8 feet across the dining room to the other side of a full size goal. (2) This would invariably take the entangled Tournament goal net with away from the playing surface (3) The match ball (possibly one of those white ones with the red stripe used to great effect by Arnold Muhren in 1980's Ipswich European success) would end up in the dog1s mouth and, according to the goalkeeper on the sideboard, never hit the back of the net and (4) an argument would ensue between two pre-pubescents over the best way to settle such a matter (we hadn't experienced penalty shoot-outs to the degree that kids in the 90s have seen).
Frankly, seeing as the whole goalkeeper thing was the catalyst of these arguments, a penalty shoot-out involving the goalkeeper would have been lunacy. Instead, and in the interests of decency, decorum, and not wishing to be reduced to tears first, my opponent 'flicked' the controversial scorer (one Teofilo Cubillas) out of the ground, and against a nearby radiator.
In retaliation, and in keeping with the emotionally charged South American contest between my 1978 Peru, and his Argentinean World Champions, I carefully chose the figure sporting a white/sky blue striped jersey with a number 9 on the back, and snapped him off at the ankles. I was pleased to see on Gary Lineker1s Golden Boot series before the World Cup this year, that my fracas with Mario Kempes is long forgotten, and that he chose to relive his six 1978 strikes, rather than dwell on my tackle that took both his legs away.