WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
Join "amateur" historians Andrew and Liam (thrice bronze medalists in 'The South Yorkshire Rememberers Chalice') as every week they travel back in time like Nicholas Lyndhurst in Goodnight Sweetheart to remember things from the past.
Do you remember Woolworths? Do you remember when Marathons changed their name to Snickers? Do you remember Del Boy falling through the bar? If so then come and remember with us. If not then stick around and we will remember for you. You literally can't lose so why not hit the play button as hard as Paul Sykes hit that shark?
WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
Who Remembers........Subbuteo?
Remember flicking tiny plastic footballers across a green felt pitch while arguing over rules that nobody quite agreed on? Subbuteo was more than just a game – it was a childhood institution that generated passionate debates, creative improvisations, and hours of entertainment before video games changed everything.
In this nostalgia-packed episode, we're joined by David Beeden (aka Deadbat) who shares his deep love for the tabletop football phenomenon that had kids collecting teams, building elaborate stadiums, and dreaming of owning that elusive Astro Turf pitch.
From homemade snow scenes created with icing sugar to metal goals crafted by enthusiastic dads, we uncover the creative lengths players went to perfect their Subbuteo experience. We debate the confusing official rules that nobody seemed to follow, laugh about the ridiculously oversized trophies, and reminisce about the peculiar quirks of a game where all players looked identical (no black or bald footballers until much later) and the goals would fly away with every powerful shot.
Whether you were a casual player or had a dedicated "Subbuteo room" with wardrobes full of teams, this episode will transport you back to an era when imagination ruled and tiny plastic men captured the beautiful game in miniature form. Share your own Subuteo memories with us and help keep the spirit of this beloved game alive!
Hello and welcome to the podcast who Remembers? In this episode we are asking who Remembers Sabutio and called the internet.
Speaker 2:Stop shocking. Thanks, scoop, but none of the locals got paddling. Yeah, that's for me.
Speaker 3:No, bottle this kit. I can't speak. You can't win anything with kits. Heck man. One of the superstar video games in the business, do you?
Speaker 2:think it threatens the world we're living Before we get a fool again.
Speaker 3:Remember when it's the lowest level conversation. This is history.
Speaker 2:This is history. This is history. This is history Right here, right now. This is history. The man about town in terms of football gossip in South Yorkshire and he's here to remember the classic tabletop game, Sabutio. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr David Beedon, aka Dead Bat, how are you?
Speaker 3:today. Good evening, I'm fine. Thank you for the lovely introduction. I was thinking who you were talking about for a moment.
Speaker 2:Honestly, your podcast has a massive influence on this, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, can I just get it out there? Live that. One of the reasons we started is because I did a dog walk listening to Tufty Club and was laughing out loud all the way around and phoned Ege Andrew and said we should have a go at something like this. It's not just all football, they just talk about nonsense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if people don't know what Tufty Club is, it's billed as a Sheffield United podcast, but I think you talk about football for about 10 minutes in the two hours that you record. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's mainly about air fryers, chocolate, orange toilet inhabits. We do sneak into football a little bit, but uh, but yeah, um, I do really enjoy your podcast, both the uh, I'll say both the old and the new version, but they are pretty much the same same thing, very similar, so let's get into it then.
Speaker 2:Deb bar, why did you choose sabutio today to come to the table?
Speaker 3:sabutio, if you're remembering well, firstly, I don't want to correct your early doors, but your your pronunciation, uh, of Subutio is actually wrong. According to the experts, it's actually Suboitio, according to that's how it should be pronounced. But we will go with Subutio for the.
Speaker 1:I have conflict in research because I looked that up today and it said Subutio. So I was wondering about the B-U or Boo it's named after a bird, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was named after the Falco Subutio because the guy we'll come on to the guy who invented it. He was a keen fan of birds and he wanted to call the game the Hobby. But the trademark office decided you couldn't just call a game the Hobby.
Speaker 2:The Hobby?
Speaker 3:yeah, and he came up with the Latin name of the English bird of prey.
Speaker 2:It's a bizarre name, isn't it? For a football game. It's nothing to do with birds at all. You can't even buy birds as one of the accessories, can you?
Speaker 3:So yeah, I'm a big fan as a child, played it as a child, played it as a teenager and even into my adult years got my son into it. Obviously I've had lapses in my Subutio life but I have still got stuff and obviously this is going to be no good for the listeners, but I have got some accessories which I will post. On the thing, I've got an AstroTurf pitch Shit. Still got some of the old teams. I mean, this is the very old boxes I'm holding up.
Speaker 2:I'll post those on the what era is that? I've got a couple of 1991 boxes, sheffield United, northern Ireland. For some reason I think it's just like green.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they probably look a bit more like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're the ones yeah, that's my era too, yeah.
Speaker 1:From Sugg Sport I think, but they used to get them from Yep.
Speaker 2:But on the red and white kits, for instance, it'd say Sheffield United and Stoke City. Yeah, it'd be just exactly the same.
Speaker 3:Well, they used to have catalogues and they'd have all the numbers on them and you'd look at the numbers and look at those wall charts and, like you said, most teams were kind of covered by four or five teams but didn't have any black players until the mid-90s.
Speaker 2:No, because the ones that I've got, to be honest well, to be honest, most of mine are headless now but because obviously that were a common thing, weren't it Falling off the base and all that sort of stuff? But yeah, no, none of them were black. I had the Sheffield United, the little numbers you could put on the back and stuff like that as well, and number 10, no, you had to be Billy Whitehurst or whoever it were, like backup striker.
Speaker 3:Well, I used to get some brown felt tips. I know it's terrible, but I used to black them up Really, yeah. Yeah, I used to give myself Dean and a garner. Were you a keen flicker, liam?
Speaker 1:I had Subutio. I tended to play it a lot more at my mate's house because he had the Astro pitch and I thought that was a huge difference. I had the one that I didn't have a tabletop, I just used to play it on the carpet and it used to get wrinkled up and just Ah, impossible.
Speaker 2:Really poor.
Speaker 1:But my mate with the AstroTurb. The only thing I'd say about Wow, funny, you mentioned sort of accessories. I don't know if this is a bit early in sort of your Subutio thoughts to mention this, but is it a game where the more accessories you have actually the worse the game becomes? I thought the floodlights, the stands, the referees, everything just gets in the way of the natural game. I think yeah complete nonsense.
Speaker 3:I obviously bought all the stuff, but what I used to do is create stuff. When I weren't playing live games I'd do stuff in my bedroom on my own, live out my fantasies and sort of fill up the stands. I had the floodlights. I've even got an old scoreboard here.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, I think he had that.
Speaker 2:I didn't have that. I had the crowd, the dugout, the kickers, which were just a complete waste of time Corner kickers and throwing takers, yeah. I never had throwing takers but the goal kickers. You just booted it off the end of the pitch. It was such a waste of time.
Speaker 1:Were there any accessories? Actually that made the game better. Was there anything?
Speaker 2:Astro Turf. I think Astro Turf definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, astroturf pitch. There was a spring goalie. I don't know whether you oh I don't know, Like a spring goalie that you could sort of fire out, and apparently that was.
Speaker 2:The nets. The Italian 90 nets just looked amazing. To be honest, I don't know if they made the game any better, but they looked amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, it was invented by a bit of history.
Speaker 2:It was invented, chap called Peter Adolf no relation to the Nazi war criminal.
Speaker 3:That name's died out a little bit, hasn't it? But yeah, his son actually wrote a book on it recently about his dad's invention, and I got the book bought for me. So I thought, oh, I don't know where that book is. I don't think it's very good. It's from Tunbridge Wells and he served in the RAF, but he was dissatisfied with his lot as a civil servant. He was a keen ornithologist and he used to earn money by dealing in rare bird's eggs but yeah, that's where there's a beauty in your name. And he loved football and he used to play a game called New Footy, which was cardboard figures on lead sort of bases. But he didn't think that worked, so he basically adapted it and he made plastic bases based on his mum's buttons you know, buttons off coats.
Speaker 2:Do you know what that rings a bell? I think I might watch a documentary about this. Yeah, because weren't they an earlier game, weren't they? I think, to Subutio, where it was just like yeah, but it like sort of paper players. They were like cardboard or paper. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:He made them 3D, but he had this idea with the buttons off his mum's stuff and he kind of created this thing where you could sort of flick things and curl them and stuff and yeah and he sort of. It was 1947 and yeah, it sort of really took off quite quickly, but it was in the 60s when we won the World Cup that it just went, went mad and I think later on Waddington quite a big toy company for a quarter of a million pounds, which is crazy.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of money in days there. We should mention actually that obviously we normally do things that don't exist anymore or whatever. But I think this is fine because we are well past the peak, aren't we, of Subutio, sort of the golden years?
Speaker 1:It did end, didn't it? And then it came again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it went sort of around. If you think about games, consoles and computer games, it was all so interactive they didn't need to bother with it. But um it when I think that it was bought by hasbro and they tried to bring. Is that?
Speaker 2:how we say it. Hasbro, don't ask me they tried to.
Speaker 3:There's another toy and they tried to bring it back and uh, it didn't really work. But then I think around about sort of uh, so covid times. It's had a bit of a renaissance and it's still. It is still being sold and there is still like Subutio leagues and there's still people who kind of kind of play it. I mean, I remember, can you remember the theme tune? They had an advert. Subutio, subutio, oh, oh, oh, oh oh that's it, yeah, that's it, yeah, thank you, yeah it sounds like a future.
Speaker 2:That's it, yeah, Thank you. Yeah, it sounds like a future. I used to think he said off, off, off as a kid. So off, off, off, off off. I don't know how you send things off all the time.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that live, but I've seen the clip and I actually found an older advert from the 70s and what that tells you right at the end of it. It's a bit more sort of tacky, but it does reveal that, and even then, by the way. So this is 1977, there's floodlights, there's stands, there's a referee, and all items are available separately from 24 pence to £2.95. Bargain, so different era.
Speaker 2:What a bargain.
Speaker 3:I really like sort of got into it properly. My dad and uncles used to talk about this game. I was like it's a beauty, what are they talking about? Because it's just a ridiculous name. Like what are?
Speaker 2:they talking about.
Speaker 3:And then, when I heard it was football, I thought oh, it could be all right and we bought a load of stuff off a neighbour. It was like a job lot we got like because I don't know whether you remember, they sold them in like sets, you could get like a World Cup.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the set was I got this second-hand thing and they literally sold me about 20 teams. There was goals, there was scoreboards, floodlights stands. I was like this is amazing. I was like Liam said, I didn't know what to do with all the stuff. But yeah, but my cousin, who was the same age as me, who lived in the same village, he was that into it. He had a Subutio room.
Speaker 2:What I'm impressed. People might laugh at that, but I'm impressed.
Speaker 1:Do you know what, though, I think if you had a house big enough and enough money because I think I'm more impressed by the theatre of Subutio than possibly the game itself To set it all up and change the teams and recreate goals and things like that. I can imagine that being absolutely brilliant, actually.
Speaker 3:Well, he lived in a lot bigger house than we did, so he used to go around and he'd like you'd go into this room and it was like it was incredible. He had like wardrobes with all the teams in it. He was one of the first that had the Astro pictures and he'd like you know, like you said, liam, about you used to put it on the floor and it was all cre, all on boards, all like kind of taped to boards and stuff. It was like proper set-up. I was so jealous and we used to play like away games. We used to go around and play away games. I suppose that was like kind of the Wembley, whereas I was more like Rotherham or something.
Speaker 2:This sounds like. Have you ever heard the Half man, Half Biscuit song?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the one for.
Speaker 2:Christmas is a Duke Le Prague away kick. This is just what you're talking about. It's basically the same where he goes round to his mate's house who's got everything the crowd and the dugout and the floodlights.
Speaker 3:I wanted to outdo Michael because he had this Astro pitch. I was like, well, I can do better than that. So I had this idea. We got a few old pitches. I decided to try and recreate like a snow scene. So I got some icing sugar, literally covered the pitch with it and then realized quite quickly well, the ball's not actually moving anyway, it's getting stuck. My mum was not happy.
Speaker 2:It's hard enough anyway on like a normal, if you're not got an astro turf pitch, what were you? So I used to play. I used to live with my cousin for about five years. We fostered him and I used to play with him quite a lot and it was. It's how, when you say it'll be so exciting because you're like, oh, this is going to be amazing, but we didn't have astroturf, so we're sort of flicking it around, it's so difficult because it just creased up all the time, so I can't imagine what it was like with sugar on the pitch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, I had to, because I created the snow scene. I had to use one of the, uh, you know one of the, the orange or yellow, yellow balls. I've still got an Adidas Tango football.
Speaker 1:You can buy actually a snowy.
Speaker 2:AstroTurf.
Speaker 1:Can you, Can you? I've seen it today, yeah, which is obviously. It must just be coloured on the turf itself. See, you should have sold that.
Speaker 3:When does it arise, Liam?
Speaker 2:Nick, in your idea you could have sold this, be a millionaire. I'd love to know how many they sold. But yeah, but you used to play with your dad, didn't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I used to play with my friends and stuff, like a few of you said, but I used to play against my dad. My mum worked nights. I tried to get him into Commodore 64s or Spectrums or, later on, amigas. He didn't. I'm not playing computer games, let's get Subutio out. And so we used to play and we had a proper league. So I'd write down we'd have, I'd be United and he'd be all the opponents, we'd play out all the games.
Speaker 3:Oh really, yeah, write the scores and the scores and we'd decide if I won. I've moved up two places. We've still probably got them somewhere. We play 10 minutes each way, which is the official. That is the official time, apparently, you're supposed to play 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:Oh, in fact, thinking about it, we used to have a little timer. Yeah, we used to have like a little egg timer, whatever thing like at the side and like, yeah, not many goals scored when we played because we weren't very good. I don't know what. I've heard you were very defensive, though. Defensive though You've not told me this, but I've heard on the grapevine that you're a very defensive player.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I mean you could set your players up. It wasn't like you had to play. I'm going to play 4-4-2. I used to line like 8-9 in a line sort of thing. Get past that, Dad.
Speaker 2:And he used to struggle Is it true, you used to kick it out of play as well, to play for like a 0-0 if you needed it Well, yeah, sometimes when I had it on the table the kitchen table later years you could flick it.
Speaker 3:So it went and you couldn't find it. I mean, my dad had MS. He was like struggling. This is ridiculous.
Speaker 3:Struggling around looking for this ball You've only got a minute. Dad, you're 2-0 down. I can't find it. Put a. Put a book to him for time wasting. Yeah, but uh. But yeah. I remember playing with uh school. They set up a school league. This guy likes uh one teacher we're doing a subutio school league at lunch times and like me and uh webbing the other half for tufty club. We were like massive excited. We turned up, brought us teams and then I realized like the rules would they played slightly different rules. We might discuss kind of rules a bit more.
Speaker 1:This is the biggest bit I want to discuss with you. That's the bit I never got my head into is the rules.
Speaker 3:But I only went for a couple of lunch times. I remember I was playing a game, I was 2-0 up and this kid dropped like a jam tart on the Subiwio pitch.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I was like, well, we'll just clear it off. And and I was like, well, we'll just clear it off.
Speaker 1:And I remember the teacher said oh, we're going to have to abandon the game what.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm 2-0 up.
Speaker 2:You can't do that, and that's like what Warnock tried to do against West Brom.
Speaker 3:Get game abandoned because we were losing.
Speaker 2:Throwing jam tarts onto the pitch.
Speaker 3:And I remember Mr Bashford, the geography teacher who oversaw the league, said no, no it's about. And I stormed out he's dead now, actually, but I don't think I contributed to it.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, you don't mourn him either for his jump to that decision.
Speaker 3:Oh well, yeah, he was a very angry man.
Speaker 2:He was a David Ellery-type figure of.
Speaker 3:Oh, very serious sort of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it. I only played two weeks and I quit. I wonder if you went through the rules and we'll get on to the sort of slick rules and who moves when. But I wonder if there is a rule about something coming on encroaching the playing field and what happens in that instance. I wonder if there is a rule.
Speaker 2:Board games are always a bit like this, though. We played Risk, didn't we? Liam? Once with our mate who thought this will be a good game. We'll have a game of race, had a few drinks and he just started shouting fortification constantly wherever we landed. Fortification, fortification. What are you talking about? Nobody knew. Like I said, fortification, fortification. It just ruined it. We had to stop because everyone had different rules in mind.
Speaker 3:I think whatever you play and this is my philosophy for life as long as you agree the rules with the person that you're playing, you're having fun, it doesn't matter. I mean, I think it's important to stick to some baseline rules, but I think people get too caught up on. Well, no, you're not playing the official rules.
Speaker 1:I think Paul is a key example of that. Is it play till you miss and then you get another go?
Speaker 2:or is it?
Speaker 1:a free shot and then you're just playing as normal. Establish that early doors on the two shots, but I don't think it needs much discussion to establish no jammed tarts should be thrown onto the pitch. I would take that as a given, to be honest.
Speaker 3:You're talking about interference on the pitch Genuine story. Once I ended up with 10 men and sometimes I used to sit on them and break them and stuff and that was a common thing. But we had a little Yorkshire Terrier and I'm convinced that he ate one of my players and for days after when I was taken for war it was only about 11, 12, I was having to check his business to see if my right back was there. He never materialised.
Speaker 2:I wonder where he went. Obviously, they got hoovered up quite a lot, though, as well, didn't they? A lot of mine got hoovered up and things like that. I don't think I can't even think where all my teams went, to be fair, but it's one of those sort of things that I don't know. I'd love to. I think it's brilliant just to set up and just look. I think it's a proper, visually really striking game if you get everything set up. But you were on about winning and stuff like that, and it's another thing. Do you remember the size of the cups that they used to give you if you won a game? They were bigger than the players.
Speaker 3:Well, the balls, the balls. I think the balls were too big. The were too big, the balls were too big. You can clip that Because they are bigger than the players. But we weren't happy with the balls so we got some slightly smaller ones. Again, I'll post pictures of that. But the smaller ball was easier to play with.
Speaker 1:Are they non-regulation?
Speaker 3:Well, not non-regulation, but again it made it for a better game, and we bought some of these.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the balls were too big.
Speaker 1:Should they not be heavier as?
Speaker 3:well, would you?
Speaker 1:not want like a marble, because you could blast it so far away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wonder if a weighted ball would have been better. Yeah, yeah, but the the teams I, you know, I went to sug sport as well and I remember there was like again a bit like I said my cousin, there was a whole section that did subutia. When I was growing up I used to go in and it was like teams were everywhere and I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I used to get from Beaters. Remember Beaters? Yeah, I used to go in there and pick a team out and it was just my favourite kits at the time. I used to have, like Northern Ireland versus Peru Did you know what I mean? Stuff like that, just two teams.
Speaker 3:It's mad that they didn't have black players. They didn't have bald players. There were hardly any blonde players, they were just all these kind of you know. What I mean Was that not necessarily equality.
Speaker 1:Was that more just to do with cost? Were they just trying to do everything? As a repeat, I get what you mean. You think they should have spiced it up a bit.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the key is the name of the guy that invented the game.
Speaker 2:I thought, yeah, the game. I thought, yeah, they all had little tashes as well, didn't they? Yeah, but I think, like when you talk, I think when I first started playing it they were all like that, but I'm pretty sure I was still sort of collecting it when black players came in. I might be wrong here, might be a false memory. Certainly the kits change because I remember the sheffield united kit 92, actually had a little badge on Like it's little Sheffield United it might have been a little bit later than that.
Speaker 2:But, the ones before that. As I said, they were all the same. Just like you know, it could have been any team that played in red and white.
Speaker 3:Well, obviously the original players. They broke really easily, didn't they? Because they just snapped their sort of ankles sort of thing. But versions they sort of screwed in, didn't they? You sort of put them in, they sort of could bring them apart from the base.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I seem to remember when they broke you could melt them or get your dad to do it and kind of stick them and they'd get shorter and shorter as they kind of snapped and got melted back together.
Speaker 3:My dad was a sheet metal welder by trade, so not only did he used to mend them and stuff, we did glue them sometimes, and then we'd put them on the fire and forget about them and then like they'd literally. They were like waxed with, or they'd just be the head squashed against the base.
Speaker 2:That's a great idea. When you've lost, you're like when you're really angry after a game. Burn them, burn them.
Speaker 3:But my dad didn't like the golds either. It was too plastic, it was too lightweight, and they moved it out too much the goals were shocking. So my dad made some metal goals, still got them to this day and they literally wouldn't move, they wouldn't budge, I wouldn't have asked you about these guys and the noise when you hit the post, it like pinged off the post.
Speaker 2:Oh that beautiful sound of it in the post, but like I was going to ask you about the goals Because Even when you scored, the net would just fly off you. It depended on how big your room were. Obviously, sometimes, like we were playing in like quite a small room, you'd lose your goal and you'd be like you couldn't find it, like underneath, like do you know what I mean? Chair or beds or wherever you were playing in Ridiculous how flimsy the goals were.
Speaker 1:Did you permit, dave? Did you permit first hold?
Speaker 3:them steady. No, I think you can. Well, you put it flat firstly, but I think you can move it about. If you keep it just still, then that's a bit pointless, because your goal is to recreate the game as a football, isn't it? So your goalie would dive, you mean like when the shot's been taken. You can't wipe it.
Speaker 1:So I've seen people who wave it frantically side to side to try and cover the whole net, and that often moves the net and then you have to stop.
Speaker 3:I think you have to be still on the shot, but then you can move once the shots. Otherwise you'd be doing the peter shilton and like way for you to go in and then diving after, aren't you?
Speaker 2:but yeah, but people used to do that. I know what liam's on about. Like wiggle from side to side and then like it just obviously. Obviously the net's moving away like from different angles. Peter Sheldon would just lay his goalie down and just leave it yeah, just leave it like, but he'd do it after he'd go in and then he'd go.
Speaker 3:Oh really slow but did you used to have to declare when you were shooting? Did you, like, used to say I'm shooting already?
Speaker 2:yeah, and obviously, yeah, yeah, and obviously they had the line for people who have never played it. You can only shoot behind a certain line, can't you?
Speaker 3:The scoring line, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't shoot from the halfway line. You're not going to get I don't know, like a Josh Windass Sheffield-Wenzy goal from last season or anything like that. You can only shoot behind the line. And yeah, you have to see Because otherwise the other player wouldn't have the goalkeeper ready so he couldn't save it.
Speaker 1:So you'd have to say, right, I'm having a shot, and then you'd line up. To be honest, as soon as I got past that line, I'd almost always have a shot. Yeah, I don't think I. I think just by definition of the line being there, I did know you could only be in a certain area. I'm not sure if I remember a declaration of shot intent. I think well, in in the official rules.
Speaker 3:You don't have to declare it, I've read the official rules. You don't have to declare it, I've read the official rules you don't have to say when you're shooting which is a bit ridiculous, because if you're on a table or on the floor and then somebody gets into position, it's like a race round- yeah, running around.
Speaker 2:And grab hold of your stick and it's hard enough to save it anyway, so I'm not happy with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the scoring line was interesting. I think I've discussed this before. I used to play really dirty because what I used to do is take a goal kick or a free kick or any kick really, and I used to position my players behind the scoring line so that I could bounce them off the play. Well, even my dad's play it didn't have to be my play so I could deflect it in, that's a good idea.
Speaker 3:But again the caveat was I had to say I'm shooting and he'd go. You're doing your dirty tactics again and I'd fire it off a player. But I was great at getting the deflections.
Speaker 2:I was about to ask were you any good?
Speaker 3:I don't want to brag, but yes, I would say, you know I'm not. There was a guy that played at the World Cup I was reading about it and he insured his hand for like cup I was reading about, and he insured his hand for like £150,000.
Speaker 2:But you watched something earlier, didn't you? Liam?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I watched. Funnily enough, you saying you don't want to brag. I watched a 1988 BBC brief documentary today and I think the presenter seems to be doing it quite tongue in cheek. I think he's kind of mocking the situation. But the players are very serious. One of them's I think you're going to touch on this a little bit later, but one of them's grown his fingernail very long because you think it gives him an advantage. And yeah, they say to someone and of course you were last year's World Cup finalist and he says, well, yeah, but you know it's a bit like Maradona when you've got it, you don't need to brag. He's putting himself up with Maradona.
Speaker 3:It's taken very seriously. Even now. There's leagues around the world. There's a shop in Italy, I think there's a couple, that sell just Subutio stuff, which is mad. Even now. It's quite big in Italy, I think it's in Florence, and then they've got another branch in Turin. It just sells wall-to-wall Subutio.
Speaker 1:I get that, though For our generation who loved it as kids, who've now probably a little bit of disposable income, like they're kind of remembering back to their childhoods, yeah, I kind of get why it would be growing again. Okay, so let's move into the serious section. Probably the reason that killed it a little bit for me is the understanding of the rules. So if you could take us through your rules and I'll stop you at any point and Egi, you might have a different version so feel free to challenge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean essentially you use your finger index or middle, not thumb. I don't know whether anyone used different fingers. Okay, and your nail to flick the ball. You shouldn't be using the other side of your finger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, difficult to do that. I don't have a side of finger because, yeah, Difficult to do that. Absolutely no side of finger, because one of the guys I played with was insistent as long as it was a hit and not a push you could use the side of your finger.
Speaker 3:I think he's wrong there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's cheating. I think that's a massive cheater.
Speaker 3:He's been living a lie his whole life. You can tell him later. Yeah, so the skilled players. The big trick was could you curl a player around an opponent? So when you've got a player shielding the ball, could you flick it so it went round the defender and nicked the ball. If you could do that, you were seen as a bit of an expert.
Speaker 1:And the risk is there if you hit the player first.
Speaker 3:It's. If you hit the opponent's player, it's a foul, um, so it kind of replicates the rules of football, but essentially each player the the 10 outfield players could take three flicks each onto the ball per passage of play per player. So you could like do a dribble down the pitch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could do it three times with a player.
Speaker 3:So if you flicked it three times, then someone else had to flick it. In theory, you should be passing it on your third flick, if you see what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm with you so far, then. So the bit that I found most confusing is whilst you're flicking your players, is the opponent allowed to do?
Speaker 3:Right. Well, this is the bit where, on the official rules, they say that if you take a flick, so you make a flick of the ball player onto the ball, your opponent can make a flick, not to the ball but flick it to position itself in a defender, to move him in a defensive position. I hated those rules, absolutely hated those rules. So we didn't have those rules. Absolutely hated those rules, so we didn't have those rules. Basically, if you were defending, you couldn't do any flicks until the person lost the ball because it was too slow. It was too slow you weren't able to flick.
Speaker 3:You weren't able to flick, but I know the official rules is you can move and then you're moving your players around. So I think it's different for free kicks and corners, which I've come on to.
Speaker 1:So what you find is, even on the World Cup footage that I've watched, when somebody's moving quite quickly playing passes, their opponent's moving their player, and I always thought so what happened is, after they'd flicked, if the player and ball were still, you could make a defensive move. That's what I thought. I don't know whether I kind of made that rule up.
Speaker 3:No, I think you're right, but I don't like it because it's just too much flicking.
Speaker 1:But even worse than that, what it became in games I've seen today at elite level is that there's multiple players being flicked around all the time whilst the ball's still moving. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Defensive, like they're getting the defenders into position, and stuff like that which, as Deadbat says, for amateurs and I dare call him an amateur- he took it and now yeah and the, the game just took too long because so yeah, I mean to me one person's in possession.
Speaker 3:They move with the ball and then, once they lose possession, they miss the ball by flicking or touching it inside the scoring area, which was about 35 yards out, would you say, between halfway line and the area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in terms of free kicks and corners and things, if it was a throw-in, you got one flick to move a player into position. The attacking team and then the defensive team could also do a flick to essentially mark that player or another player. And on free kicks and corners, we did three flicks, but I think on the official rules it's two on free kicks, three on corners, which seems a nonsense, but we just did three flicks. So this is, when the ball's dead, the attacking team makes three flicks to position your players and then the defensive team does likewise and then the ball comes into play so was there any option, as far as you're aware, within the rules to place a wall for a free kick?
Speaker 2:yeah, you could do that, couldn't you, yeah.
Speaker 3:So when you got a free kick, we did allow a wall to be placed, but I mean I think it had to be. I mean you've made a good point there, because now I'm thinking about it, if I got a free kick, like in my defensive half, and my dad suddenly just lined up, yeah I think it would. I think it had to be a shooting free kick, for to put a defense, I think you had to declare you were shooting and from the clips I've seen.
Speaker 1:It looks to be that it's a three-man wall.
Speaker 3:I've not seen a line of eight or nine, so I don't know whether that was my dad did used to put quite a few in his wall, but I was very adroit at getting it over that Well, I was quite good at chipping it actually.
Speaker 1:I think to be fair, sometimes the wall was great for a deflected goal. If you could just kind of flick it through the wall. You were quite often onto a bit of a winner there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but there was offsides as well. But what we said for offsides is, if your player was in an offside position, you could physically pick it up and move it and put it into an onside position.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. Is that a Beedon family rule?
Speaker 3:A Beedon rule and we also said, when it went out for a goal kick, you could move your players into positions. You could just move them if you wanted to. We didn't often do it, but you could if you wanted to If you think about it for a goal kick, everybody gets into position.
Speaker 2:We did that. We did the goal kick thing. Exactly the same thing, where you could put people into position as a goal kick. Because obviously all of your players are like Again, if you're an amateur, you're just flicking your players anywhere. There's people off the pitch and you know what I mean If you look at some of the formations.
Speaker 3:If you did a freeze frame of some of the games in Sibutio, like beauty of like between uh, you know players who aren't experts. There's like 10, 12 players in like a little bit and the ball's like over the other side. It doesn't always mirror.
Speaker 1:You know a proper game, so you're playing it the way that I think I kind of wanted to play it.
Speaker 1:I actually think if, if we did a beating rules and if people before tournaments just shook hands and said we're playing beating rules and it might actually have a bigger resurgence because, some of the things that you're doing there are unravelling some of the things that used to frustrate me, and I used to really be quite keen on the idea that they couldn't move whilst I was flicking. And then you'd go to somebody's house and play a game and they'd be firing players all over the place. What?
Speaker 3:on earth's going on. Yeah, because the skill is you've got the ball. You've got the ball. It's your job to try and manoeuvre it down the pitch. The other person has to wait patiently. It's very rare that you would go from one end of the pitch to the other without losing it.
Speaker 2:Losing it. Can you imagine it? Nowadays, though, with Tic-a-tac-a, everyone just doing little short passes to each other, you never get a go. You sit down for two hours.
Speaker 1:I'm doing the Peck-Tec-P.
Speaker 3:Well, I was very much the sort of Dave Bassett approach. I used to position my strikers high up the field and get it long.
Speaker 2:Get it to wingers get it in box.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean, scoring was a skill and, like you said, I think it was quite hard to. If you made a save, you were quite proud because it was quite hard to save it, like to turn it around the post. But yeah, I remember penalties as well, like that was I think. I think we had a rule on penalties. Actually you couldn't move as a keeper, you had to be very still a bit like it is now.
Speaker 2:So I think, because otherwise you'd have that frantic motion they should be able to do that in real football where you more exciting that would be.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean, there's lots of people who sort of cheated, like you say, the longer nails was a bit of a thing as well. People have like chopped arms off and given themselves a lower centre of gravity and then you can spin it more and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's supposed to be better for the spins. Apparently, polishing the underside, which started off as a bit of a cheat but became sort of fairly standard, was to polishing the underside. Which started off as a bit of a cheat but became sort of fairly standard was to polish the underside for less friction yeah.
Speaker 2:Would you watch us a Booty O tournament on TV? If, say, I don't know Bravo, I don't even know if Bravo's the thing. No, I think it'd be absolutely dreadful.
Speaker 3:It would be so boring. I wouldn't watch me playing Booty O, I'd shut the curtains.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a game.
Speaker 3:I think you're right. It's more about the teams, but I think if you played somebody who was a similar level I played my son a couple of years ago and we had a game and he was rubbish he was like can we play?
Speaker 1:FIFA now I'm fine with the look on you, subiu, get behind your goal, lad. But that was a game where people had some patience in those days, didn't they? So I think you could kind of wait your turn, whereas I think the introduction and I think you're a year or two older than me and Agus, but same generation of, I think as we were enjoying this game, all of a sudden the well, why would we spend so much time setting this up, messing around, when actually we can have an hour of really good close games on a computer?
Speaker 2:But they used to have Subutio on the Amiga and C64. There were Subutio games, yeah, really good. Actually I didn't have it, but I remember the reviews for it being really good Subutio games. But, like you say, I think we came at it a little bit too late because, as Liam says, it was just sort of as consoles were coming out really 93, were it Mega Drive or whatever? Something like that Master System. You just put a console and you're playing it straight away With Suboot. You have to put the pitch out, set everything up. Do you know what? I mean? You're talking a couple of hours, but it is a shame.
Speaker 3:I mean I suppose it's like I compare it to golf in the way that if you I'm terrible at golf can't play golf, but if you played it regularly and become good at it, then it became quite addictive. But I think you know just to turn up and flick it, I don't want to keep missing the ball. It's like what's the point of this? You needed to really work at your craft and sort of stick at it. But I think you're right. I think it was definitely for people my age and younger. So I understand why people now look at it and think why would I put this green felt pitch out? Why would I line up all these players? It seems ridiculous. I understand why it doesn't sell.
Speaker 1:I understand why people. Is there anything you can think of in sort of I'm putting you on the spot here, because we haven't discussed this previously. Is there anything we could think of now to make this game more playable for a younger audience, or do you think it's just had its day now? I?
Speaker 3:don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking like magnets on the players and you can control them. You know like little boats at the fairground and stuff. Is there a way you can move them around?
Speaker 3:Like I don't know, I'll sort of talk about some of the other Subuteos as well, but I think after Subuteo can you remember Tomey Super Cup football.
Speaker 2:Liam sent me a picture of this today. Actually brilliant absolutely brilliant it looked shocking. I looked at the video that you sent. Did you play it?
Speaker 1:Liam, my brother had it. I've spent so many hours on that. Honestly, it was so, I think, because Subutio was quite. Again, we're repeating a little bit. You had to set it up. It was quite a slow game. This was bang. Turn it on. Yes, I think in your notes it was really noisy. It sort of drowned out the rest of the house.
Speaker 2:No, it's like wearing when my next door neighbor honestly cuts his lawn every day and literally, like he just reminds me of that like bad, bad vibes but I think like you could, you could actually get good at it, you could dribble, you could pass.
Speaker 1:And I remember my dad quite liked sabutio. But I remember like I'd have to sort of say to him, can we have a game liked Sabutio? But I remember I'd have to say to him, can we have a game of Sabutio? And sometimes he'd be like well, we'll see later on. As soon as I told me cup, I told me cup thinking mate, oh yeah, come on, let's have a game of that. He absolutely loved it and I just think it was so much more playable. It didn't have the theatre, it didn't have the sort of style, but it was a bit sort of like yeah, just pick it up and play, yeah, and any idiot could have a go at it. Really, yeah.
Speaker 3:For those who weren't aware of Tomey. At Super Cup football, the players were on their own grooves on the pitch, didn't they? And they sort of moved up and down and you sort of fiddled with some knobs to kick it and spin it, didn't you? It was quite a skill, but it was quite small, wasn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:a really small pitch and each player had a sort of protrusion at the bottom on one side, so you could either dribble on one side or you could roll it round to the other side. I mean, inevitably there was a lot of just licks and spinning it and stuff which I don't like in any of these games, which I don't like in any of these games Do you remember blown football Like we used to get? Straws. And Do you remember when the wheel was invented?
Speaker 3:Blown football was very limited, wasn't it? Literally, you would just blow a ball through.
Speaker 2:Blow a straw and a ball would go into different places. Yeah, I had that, penny rugby you played penny rugby. That rings a bell. Yeah, Well, it was shove a penny, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:It used to be three flicks. We used to shove it along.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, if it landed on the end of the desk, you flicked it up and it had to.
Speaker 1:And the other person made the post, didn't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the other person did the post, yeah and they have cricket dice as well.
Speaker 3:How's that was the cricket?
Speaker 2:dice yeah, how's, that was the cricket dice. There was soccer one as well.
Speaker 3:That was good yeah.
Speaker 2:I used to play that on my own, recreating that weekend's fixtures so sad when I was about nine. It'd be like oh, manchester United I don't know, aston Villa are on, let's see who's going to score. And it'd be like this dice it's a good pass forward, move to dice green and you roll.
Speaker 3:Great, lost the ball, opposition's turn and then you go back and, yeah, the cricket one was like how many runs you'd score, whether they'd catch you out and stuff. But talking about recreating, going back to the beauty of it, I used to. When I was on my own, I used to set up all the stadium. I didn't have enough spectators because you could buy the spectators but they sold the Queen. You could buy the spectators, but they sold the queen. I remember I had the queen the queen, not as in the music group, as in the queen royalty and I used to put her in the royal box with a massive trophy that was like five times bigger than that. But I didn't have enough people to fill the stands, so I used to put Lego figures in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:What I used to do is I used to like usually my tape recorder this is how old I am and I used to play like songs at half-time. And then I'd play the scores and I'd like do you know? Like when the goal was scored, like at some grounds, I'd say, the goal scorer of Sheffield United, number 10, me there.
Speaker 2:What's that doing? Things like that, though, were brilliant. I can't remember what they were. They were like football action figures and they'd be doing sliding positions, but I'd play with them. I'd like games like 11-a-side with those, and just like moving around with this, but ridiculous. No wonder they broke computers out.
Speaker 1:You would have got on incredibly well with my mate Furness, because he we used to do some of's, but sometimes we'd do penalties in his room and be diving about and his mum and dad would get mad. But he'd make, say, if we were having a penalty shootout next day, he'd make like pre-match programmes and he'd record crowd noise to play in the background and stuff like that he genuinely, manager, genuinely did yeah for the final, yeah For the final.
Speaker 2:He'd put his suit on like if he got to a final or stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, going back to my cousin I'm going to have to get him to list this now, but he lives in the same village as me. We made our own team up and it was called High Bees, not to be confused with Hibernian, because of our surname, beeder. Oh, of course we had programmes. We used to go and play games at the park. We always used to play against the same kid. There was only one kid who used to play against us, a guy called Tim Dable, and we used to go to the park and we used to play two on one. He was a bit older than us and we'd always have a close game and then he'd take it to us and say, no, no, no, we the match report. Yeah, I made a kit out of a white t-shirt and I got the badges and I got my mum to like so sew them on, uh, you called the high B.
Speaker 2:It's like a daddy baker 606 phone called you know brilliant.
Speaker 3:I hope he listens to this and he can. He will back me up on this, but I think I did it like the bads out of paper. First I thought this ain't gonna work, trying to glue them on with pretty stick and mum, you're gonna have to Well, I can't sew them on. We'd turn up, we'd run down the general. That was the tunnel. We'd go down the general. I think we had a theme tune and everything A theme tune.
Speaker 2:Can you record that as well? I'd love to get hold of that theme tune but yeah there.
Speaker 3:But yeah, there were other versions of Cebucio. There was Cebucio rugby, which I had, which was absolutely awful. It was basically football, because you couldn't pick the ball up, you just flicked it along. I've seen that version.
Speaker 1:Did you score points just for getting the ball as a conversion? Then you didn't have to go between the posts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the best thing about it was you had a kicker, and that was quite good, because you do conversions. They had this scrum thing. It was like an oval shape. You put the ball in and it'd go out of a hole. It was all holes, and whichever hole it came out of, you'd put your players position them around each team. Then they'd take over the ball. There was no skill involved at all.
Speaker 2:It was just whichever way it lands, that's who's won the scrum. Yeah, what's that? You have Subutio Hockey, which again I think was exactly the same.
Speaker 1:You just flipped it along and Subuteo Angling what.
Speaker 3:That's harder to understand, isn't it? How does that work? I don't know. I think it was more of a board game, this one, but it was definitely Subuteo brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there was a Subuteo Cricket he's running out of ideas, isn't he by this? Point yeah, yeah, old adult.
Speaker 3:But I thought to be a cricket. I thought, yeah, I had that, I had that, but I didn't have to be a cricket. I had test match cricket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, I remember an advert for a very similar sort of cricket game. That actually looked really good and I only played it once and it didn't play as well as the advert made it look like it would.
Speaker 3:Was that test match cricket?
Speaker 1:I think you put a ball in and it rolled down a thing, yeah, so you had like a bowling.
Speaker 3:You put it in. It went down like a shoe a little metal ball, yeah, that sounds right. It'd go down the shoe and your batsman was on like a pulley, so you'd have to pull the pulley back to time the shot.
Speaker 3:It was so hard. You literally would just miss it every time and just to get out you because you obviously couldn't catch it. It won't go in the air. Your fielders would just have these like kind of they were like mips that would like the ball would roll into it and that'd be out and you'd get runs. It'd be like one run for a little bit, two run for a neck and then four would obviously hit you'd like velcro the the fence around certainly played it, but I never had it.
Speaker 1:I mean, that actually reminds of this is like the sort of heartbreaker being a kid, isn't it? I remember being about eight or nine and buying a cricket computer game for the Atari ST and on the back it showed all images of like catches and hits. And I phoned my dad and said I want to get back, dad, we've got this cricket game. And he was like, oh brilliant.
Speaker 2:And actually what you did is you watched the score once every three minutes. A little cut had come in of somebody doing a catch or a hit. It was the worst game. It was absolutely. Do you ever remember a game? Random number generator, basically. Yeah, remember a game called, uh, daily double horse racing, where you'd bet on a horse. Then it just show you're a whole. That were it like. You obviously didn't win any money.
Speaker 2:Put on point 10 pound on this horse here, and then, like, this horse is winning you, you've won £10. Rubbish, absolutely rubbish.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I look back now and I can understand people listening thinking it sounds awful. I think for me, a lot of the nostalgia with it was playing with my dad. My uncle used to play it as well and it was happy memories of growing up and I still think of it favourably, but I don't think it's something I'd be wanting to do even now. I've still got all the stuff, but I don't know why I never do anything with it.
Speaker 2:I think that everyone around our age, if you mention Sabutio, will give a rice, not a rice bowl, just a smile and say oh yeah, I remember. I don't think anyone's going to go fucking rubbish that like our age. But if you played it now you'd probably say it's fucking rubbish, yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 3:What I'll do is I'll send some videos of me me playing Subuteo and that'll that'll hook into it and they'll all be rushing out to Sugg Sports to buy some tea.
Speaker 2:I love us a video.
Speaker 1:We have a history, don't we Particularly on the last podcast Delivering with Madeleine of killing celebrities. I wonder if this could be the opposite the resurgence of superhero that it kicks on after this yeah, it could be. Probably more likely. It kills it and that's it done.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I did say like because I want to distribute here. But I think you talked about computer games and I'm quite passionate about that as well. But Old Webding, I think, is your guy for that. I think if you do a spin-off from this and talk about, you know the Spectrum and Football Manager and Match Day and you know Kick-Off, kick Off 2 on Commodore 64, emily News Soccer.
Speaker 2:Emily News Soccer yeah.
Speaker 3:And then it went on to consoles like Pro Evo and FIFA and obviously all the Champ Manager, football Manager.
Speaker 2:We're in talks, we're in deep discussions with Webding anyway, about getting him on for that very subject. But thank you so much for today, deb. I really, really enjoyed that, and if there's anything else you ever want to remember, hit us up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, feel free to remember, we're not doing another one on Subutio.
Speaker 2:We can do if you want, we can. Yeah, who remembers Subutio again?
Speaker 1:if we leave it a couple of weeks, we can do. Who remembers the?
Speaker 3:who remembers episode of our Subutio and just for the, for the listeners out there. Obviously, the gauntlet was thrown down by Leroy about challenging my knowledge. Well, I actually dissed his knowledge and then he fought back. But we are discussing having a I won't say live, because it'll be recorded, but a recorded quiz or Trivial Pursuit, where me and Webding take on Liam and Andrew. But Trivial Pursuit hasn't been produced for about 20 years, has it?
Speaker 1:No, but they keep updating questions, don't they? All the time? Well, yeah, you can explain about. Ben works in that world, doesn't he?
Speaker 2:Ben sort of yeah, he's done Trivial Pursuit questions. I think we'll come up with some idea. Anyway We'll get some idea. We should do it at Arena, Like put tickets on like oasis see how many people I want to watch us like play that'd be really if we just went to, like a pub location, put it online and see who turned up to watch people watching on youtube streaming it. I've got to get this on now see who's going to win.
Speaker 3:Yeah so there's lots, uh lots of revision to do of sort of arts and humanities and science and nature etc.
Speaker 2:Yeah but thank you so much anyway, devva. And yeah, check out Tufty Club. I'm sure people listening to this will know what that is, and even if you're not a Sheffield United fan, you don't really to everyone.
Speaker 3:I'll just have a look and I think, well, I don't, I didn't watch the Sopranos or I didn't do that. But yeah, you can pick out what you want.
Speaker 1:You can't remember everything, can you Well?
Speaker 3:as you proved over the last few weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but thank you anyway, Thanks a lot Cheers, Mr Beedon.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for your time and yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2:Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you for listening to who Remembers. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us at whorememberspod, at outlookcom. If you are a right-wing fascist, you can find us on Twitter at whorememberspod. Or if you're a Wokenor, you can find us on Blue Sky at WhoRemembersPod. Once again, thank you for listening and we'll see you next time for more remembering.