Tabletop football

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A table football game from the 1980s Table soccer P9040571.JPG
A table football game from the 1980s

Tabletop football is a class of tabletop game simulating mainly association football, but also either of the codes of rugby, or some other form of football such as American football or Australian rules football. The games employ miniature figures of players on a bounded playing board or table that looks like a football pitch (field).

Contents

Types

Implementations vary:

History

Inspired by home-made games involving children flicking marbles, bits of paper (as in paper football), coins and other discs (as in penny football and early button football), and other objects with their fingers to crudely simulate team sports, tabletop football games have been developed and released in commercially available packages under various trademarked titles over many decades. The earliest was Newfooty in 1929, and this style of game was popularised much further by Subbuteo in 1946 (later also available to simulate non-football sports like cricket and various forms of hockey), and in franchise-branded versions like Lego Soccer [3] in 2000.

A computer simulation of tabletop soccer was created as a video game, Magnetic Soccer , developed by Nintendo.

Organised competition

As a competitive activity – something of a sport in its own right – tabletop association football (some countries call it soccer) with freely movable figures on weighted bases is known as sports table football, played under rules published by the Federation of International Sports Table Football (FISTF), with an annual world cup competition since 1993, and Confederation Championships or Cups, hosted in a rotating fashion in one of the countries with a national FISTF-affiliated Association (called Member National Association, MNA). Though originally begun with Newfooty-brand (1929) and Subbuteo-brand (1947) equipment, many specialist companies now produce game pieces, such as bases, figures, goalkeepers, goals, pitches, complete playing board and tables, boxes or coffers for sets and many other fine accessories, for serious players.

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. "Table Soccer". BoardGameGeek . December 2017. Illustrates various 1965 and later non-Subbuteo models by British, Portuguese, and Swedish manufacturers including Alga, J & L Randall, Majora, U Group Holdings, United Toys, and Waddington's Games, and under various names including Table Soccer, Cup Final, Futebol de Mesa ('Table Football'), Cup Fotboll, and Ralf Edström Fotboll.
  2. 1 2 "Pilkarzyki" [Football]. Bufet PRL (in Polish). April 2017. Archived from the original on 27 December 2017. Retrieved 26 December 2017. Provides examples of several Polish-made implementation of the fixed-figures-on-springs type of game (a plastic one, named Football, from the company Przetwórstwo Tworzyw Sztucznych i Zabawkarstwo, and a metal one, Piłka Nożna ('Football'), from Zakłady Przemysłu Maszynowego Leśnictwa Krakpol in Krakow. Also illustrates a German game, Fussball Spiel ('Football Game') by VEB Plastverarbeitung Hedersleben, with movable pieces with actual kicking feet; it uses a ball that is not a sphere but a cuboctahedron, to limit rolling distance and bring it to a firm stop even if the table is not perfectly level.
  3. "LEGO Soccer".