Instead of showing footage of matches from yesteryear as I usually do every Friday, I thought I’d share a selection of videos about one of my favorite hobbies from childhood in the United Kingdom. The table soccer game called Subbuteo.

In the above commercial (presumably from the 1960’s), it captures the excitement of a young boy playing Subbuteo and imagining that he’s playing like the professionals.

In the more informative video below, Peter Whitehead walks the viewer through the history of Subbuteo (and similar games) and shows how it evolved over the decades. As Whitehead says, it was and is a perfect Christmas present. I remember finding the Subbuteo Stadium Edition under my tree in the late 1970s and feeling so much joy, and spending so many hours for the next few years playing the game.

And last but not least, we have a video below showing that it’s not just children who play, but also grown men. The video shows a few men playing the game and the tricks that they get up to.

If you remember Subbuteo or are curious about the game, feel free to post questions or comments in the box below. In the meantime, you can find several Subbuteo resources through this Subbuteo links page.