Apologies to Stephen Fry, but I saw this on an episode of the BBC television series QI and wanted to share it as I found it, well, Quite Interesting.
For those of you who have never had the pleasure of being introduced, Subbuteo is a game of table football. The players play on a cloth mat (green, naturally) and have a semi-circular, weighted base which keeps them upright during play. The reason for this is that the players are flicked with a finger to make them move, and the base design means they don’t fall over. If you’re wondering what I am going on about, maybe a look here would help.
The reason the word itself is so interesting is the because of how the game came to be named. When the inventor of the game, Peter Adolph, came to register the game for a patent, he was told his original choice of name was unacceptable. He had chosen the word “Hobby”, but the patents office informed him that English standard dictionary words could not be used for trademarks. He still got his way though – well, sort of. He registered it under a variation of the name Falco Subbuteo, a bird of prey which is a member of the genus buteo (a buteo buteo being a buzzard). The reason? The bird is commonly known as the Hobby. Score one for Peter Adolph!
There are a few references to the game in popular culture, my favourite being the Liverpool band Half Man Half Biscuit‘s seminal work “All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit”. You’ve never heard it? Click here to see it performed in 1986 on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test. The other (possibly more well-known) reference is in The Undertones‘ “My Perfect Cousin”, with the rhyme “He always beat me at Subbuteo, ‘cos he flicked to kick and I didn’t know”. All good stuff. Do you know of any more? If so, add them to the comments, please.
Unfortunately, you Brits didn’t lift the Webb Ellis trophy recently, but you might stand a good chance with the “Peter Adolph cup”. Furthermore, you’re just in time for the next competition…
Yours in sport (bwahahaha…),
MK
Hey! It’s this weekend – I had no idea. Come on England! Although I suspect the Greeks will spoil the party as they did in the last big boys Euro championship
Don’t know of any other Subbuteo references in songs but what I can tell you is that I was our estate champion two seasons on the trot back in the mid seventies.
Twelve of us each paid one pound (a reasonable sum back then) and formed our own mini-league. For the first half of the first ‘season’ we played 20 minutes each way and were getting scores such as 4-2, 3-0 etc.
By the second half of the season we were all getting so good – or so fucking boring, depending on your point of view – that we were getting some nil-nils. So we went up to thirty mins each way and – for the cup final – 45 each way.
Each kid took it in turns to host the six games over two nights, so home advantage was never an issue.
Nearly 25 quid to me over the two years. Wahey!
A few years prior, my first subbuteo kit was inadvertently trashed by my young brother when he climbed out of bed on Christmas Day and stood on the Blackpool full-back. As one did, back then I used the gas cooker to melt his feet back on to the base.
But it’s fair to say that Jimmy Armfield was never the same player after that…
Well, you are a bit of a dark horse aren’t you? OK, maybe I shouldn’t mention “dark” after recent events… ahem, anyway – result for you. Nobody likes a 0-0 – did you consider having four quarters and cheerleaders? Golden goal?
on adrian sherwoods on u sound label the barmy army, basically their dub versions of football chants from various teams : west ham, liverpool, crewe alexander, blackburn and stockport county, so and so.
anyways on the front cover theres a nice illustration of maggie thatcher, brian clough, jackie charlton and a few others (cant remember all of them) playing subbuteo…..
“just flick to kick”
Thanks, Tony Mac, for the additional information. I have heard of On U but never the Barmy Army. I feel an mp3 search coming on!