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New Footy
Subbuteo was invented by Peter Adolph, who was demobbed from the Royal Air Force after the end of World War II. Searching for a new business opportunity he turned his attention to creating a new table-top football game. He adapted his game from Newfooty, a table football game that had been invented in 1929 by William Lane Keeling of Liverpool. -
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1929-2024
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Innovation of New Footy
Peter Adolph made numerous improvements, including changing the heavy lead bases under the model players to lighter materials, using for his prototype a button from his mother's coat and a washer. -
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Creation of Subbuteo
In August 1946, Peter Adolph filed a patent for Subbuteo, finalized in May 1947. Availability was announced in August 1946, but sets weren't accessible until March 1947.
Adolph received numerous orders and turned his patented idea into a deliverable product. -
The first Subbuteo sets
The initial Subbuteo sets, named Assembly Outfits, had wire goals with paper nets, a rubber ball, and cardboard figures in two basic kits. Bases were made from buttons and lead washers, using Adolph's mother's coat buttons. No playing field was provided; instead, instructions guided how to mark an area on a blanket with chalk. Sets became available in March 1947, months after the initial announcement. The first figures were cardboard, later replaced by two-dimensional figures known as "flats." -
Rivalry between New footy and Subbuteo
In its early years, Subbuteo had a fierce rivalry with Newfooty. In the run-up to Christmas 1961, Adolph introduced a three-dimensional handpainted plastic figure into the range. After several design modifications, this figure evolved by 1967 into the classic "heavyweight" figure pictured. Newfooty ceased trading in 1961 after a failed television advertising campaign but its demise is thought to be linked to the launch of the moulded Subbuteo players. -
The downfall of Subbuteo
After Hasbro bought Waddington Games (which owned Subbueto) in 1994, Subbuteo sales declined from about 150,000 sets per year to 3,000 in 2002 and just 500 sets in 2003, when production was stopped.
Hasbro relaunched Subbuteo in 2005 with flat photorealistic card-style figures on bases, rather than three-dimensional figures. The relaunch was not a success and was again discontinued. -
The last chance for Subbuteo
In 2012, Hasbro licensed Subbuteo to Eleven Force and it returned to the shops with a new style of three-dimensional rubber figures, launching Subbuteo into its eighth decade of production. Subbuteo also made other things for the collectors, such as stands to create a stadium, cups, and crowds to try to regain buyers.