Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
Down in deepest, darkest, poshest Royal Tunbridge Wells something very special is happening. It’s the finals of the World Cup.
I don’t imagine many of my readers up here in Cumbria have an inkling of what I’m reporting.
For this is the World Cup of Subbuteo table football and, in the home town of Peter Adolph, the game’s inventor, the cream of table top wizardry is on show. It’s guaranteed that either Italy or the Germans will produce the eventual winner.
It’s just a game for kids, you say. But these are grown up kids, some of them having played since they were youngsters and still at it 50 years on.
It could have been me. For I was once a Subbuteo devotee. And one year I decided to put my abilities to the test by entering the national cup competition with a trip to Europe as the ultimate prize.
I am convinced I was robbed. After several low scoring wins over league champions I reached the last eight with a home tie against Liverpool.
My opponent duly turned up at the house — with a car load of rather menacing away supporters. Yes, away fans for a table football match.
What happened next I have never been able to rationalise. He had hands everywhere across the table, a blinding series of moves I’d never seen before. Was it legal? Was he playing by his own rules?
It was 5-0 at half time and 9-0 by the final whistle, blown I might add by one of his mates, who had been the so-called referee.
Sour grapes maybe. But this guy had hidden powers. Late on in the second half my goalie, a little man on a wire, suffered a fatal accident when a thunderous shot cut him off by the ankles and he lay a distressed figure, fired out of his base, by the penalty spot.
Hope of that trip to Italy for the European finals gone. I put my set away in its box, never to be re-opened. Broken by the humiliation I never played again.
However I still follow a site on Facebook for Subbuteo enthusiasts, just to see how the game’s traditions are being upheld.
It’s amazing the lengths some players go to with their hand painted strips and the secret liquids they use to polish the bases to make them slide more smoothly across the green baize pitches.
The game is much the same as it was nearly 70 years ago when I got my first set for Christmas. It’s got all sorts of accessories now, like stands and floodlights. Back then the men were made of cardboard and you glued them into the bases. Mr Adolph was still working on pitches and an old army blanket was recommended, marked out with chalk.
Mr Adolph created Subbuteo — from the Latin Falco Subbuteo, the name of the hobby bird — in the bedroom of his house in Tunbridge Wells. It now bears a blue plaque marking the spot where he had his flash of genius while trying to come up with a game that reproduced real football as closely as possible.
I once wrote to him about an error in the rule book. I received a neatly typed reply, signed by hand. Why didn’t I keep it, might have been worth a few bob now.
My Subbuteo men also went, lost in a house move. A last shameful reminder of the day Liverpool came to town. The day my European dream lay shattered on the living room table.
Ageism is fair game
There will be no comeback in old age. Table football does not sit well with a broken spirit and arthritic fingers.
But my incapacity at Subbuteo, shared no doubt with many more old timers, is no reason to hate us.
Why are senior citizens, silver surfers, old codgers, so reviled in this modern world?
The Government hates us, we know that. They could not wait to whip the winter allowance off 11 million poorer pensioners. Word has it they’ve not finished with their savaging of the elderly.
Now people want to drive older motorists off the roads. There is no legal age limit forcing us to give up our cars. Only those over 70 have to apply every three years for their licence.
But a poll by CarTakeBack.com and You Gov found 49 per cent of Britons feel older drivers should be completely banned from driving.
Yet again older people are seen as fit only to end their days dribbling in some old folks’ home when the reality is most of us are capable of living active lives.
A 93-year-old lady recently passed her Advanced Driving Test with flying colours. Age is just a number.
There are drivers in their 40s much less able to drive than OAPs. I had a couple of near things recently where vehicles driven by people a third my age pulled out of side roads without looking.
We rightly condemn racist behaviour and a tranche of other isms. But ageism? It’s fair game. You can laugh at a pensioner and be praised for it. Yes, it’s hate.
