Remember these guys?

Way before EA Sports, EIDOS, and their respective multi-million dollar, ultra-realistic, super-star endorsed football video games franchises FIFA 09 and Championship Manager (respectively) became popular, there was Subbuteo.

Subbu…who?

Well, if you don’t know what Subbuteo is, you probably are too young. Not that I am that old…but I remember wanting to own a set ever since I was a kid, and create epic games with ‘Roy of the Rovers’ type storylines (Roy of the what?) with 22 miniature plastic footballers and a green mat. Kids these days have it easy…they just flip on a couple of switches, pop in a disc, wait for the game to load, and select the scenario they want to play (Liverpool vs AC Milan at half-time, in Istanbul? Man Utd vs Bayern Munich in the final two minutes at the Camp Nou?). Where’s the imagination??

Anyhow, I never got a set when I was a kid. I finally got my first set when I was around 20-years-old, thanks to my then girlfriend who knew I had always wanted one. It was really sweet of her…she managed to get a second hand set online, cos the shops no longer had them…*sigh*…and, in lieu of a Subbuteo set when I was younger, I did what any kid at my age would do. Improvise.

I somehow got hold of a large piece of green flannel, used cardboard to cut out 22 miniature footballers, made goals out of more cardboard…and voila! Well, it wasn’t as polished as the real thing, but hey…it worked, and I had hours of fun making up epic on-pitch battles (off-pitch battles didn’t really exist then…it was a simpler time, you see).

Anyway, you can see that I am really bored in the off-season…and so, while waiting for the new season to start (and because I don’t have one of those Xbox thingamajigs with the latest installment of the FIFA series), I dug out my good old Subbuteo set and once again let my imagination do its thing.

And, while YOU wait for the new season to start, check out the rest of the pics below…of the players “modeling” their new kits, and taking part in an exhibition game.

"George Best" lining up to take a free-kick just outside the opponent’s penalty area…