Subbuteo (Subbuteo)

Member Name: polydeuces

Product:	Subbuteo
Date:	07/08/08 (9 review reads)
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When I was younger I always wanted a Subbuteo set. I saw the big green boxes in the Co-op department store and saw the huge range of accessories and spare teams you could get. As I was always enthusiastic about football I really wanted a Subbuteo set so I could play friends and perhaps have a little league of our own.

I am speaking of a time over 30 years ago now. In those days disposable incomes were nowhere hear as high as they are today. Subbuteo was then quite an expensive toy and it still remains today above average in price for this type of table top (or on the floor) game. I pestered my parents for ages before Christmas and on Christmas Day I opened a large parcel to find the big green box inside.
Alas in the months that followed I found Subbuteo to be a huge disappointment. The game is just so patently unrealistic. There is no movement of more than one player at once unless you are willing to play as a flurry of arms flicking manically at your players. Each players movement comes from flicking the base and it is this base that gives all the players the appearance of having been dropped in concrete presumably for annoying the mafia. The ball is unfeasibly large and completely out of scale.

The goalkeeper is controlled by being on the end of a large stick protruding out of the back of the goals. Now I've known some goalkeepers who have played like they needed a stick taking to them but this is ridiculous.
But the final disappointment was always playing the game. The rules are odd and I found open to various interpretations. Consequently I found myself losing friends as we argued over the rules, the legitimacy of goals and their habit of rucking up the pitch by kneeling on it. Worse still if they broke your star player off at the legs by kneeling on him.

Subbuteo was never a good game, I'm sorry I badgered my parents to get it me. It was so expensive I got little else that year but whenever my parents asked did I like it I'd always say yes for fear of disappointing them. Over the next months the game got fewer and fewer outings and eventually became forgotten. I can't see the future for Subbuteo. Computer games have taken over now and if you want a league among friends you can use the PC either a playing game or a management simulation.

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