Subbuteo – a table-top game invented in Langton Green, Tunbridge Wells in 1946 and beloved by many in the 1980s – has returned to the Kent town for the 2024 World Cup finals
Subbuteo players talk about the tournament
England crashed out in the quarter finals of the World Cup this weekend, in a devastating repeat of the 2022 football tournament that went a little more under the radar.
Despite leaving their hearts and souls on the pitch, the Three Lions found themselves coming up short yet again, losing out to Italy 3-0. While the upset failed to make too many waves across the pubs and living rooms of England, Three Lions supporters in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent had been with our boys in white all the nail-biting way.
They had come out in force for the Subbuteo World Cup – played in the charming commuter town where the game was invented way back in 1946. After reaching its peak popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, it has seen a resurgence during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the English Subbuteo Association’s membership rocketing eight-fold to 4,000.
Players use miniature models of footballers on rounded bases to score goals by flicking a ball around a green table designed to resemble a pitch. Over the years the bases have become flatter, yet polishing them ahead of a match remains an important ritual.
Players representing countries including England, Brazil, Japan and defending champions Italy gathered in the well-heeled dormitory settlement to compete for the coveted title of World Subbuteo Individual Champion. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council won the rights to hold the tournament above other heavy hitters Greece and Brazil, who had also expressed an interest in hosting the 2024 event.
Although the Subbuteo World Cup very much came home to its birthplace this weekend (the first time since 2012 that the UK has hosted, following Manchester’s go), the trophy remains elsewhere. Indeed, the main individual prize was bagged by Christian Filippella of the USA.
It was left to the veterans competing in the senior tournament to bag a slice of glory for England. A thick, tense silence fell over the Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre as Bob Varney stepped up to the table, having taken the final into sudden-death extra time. If he was feeling the pressure of countless years of hurt and a nation’s hopes on his shoulders, Bob certainly didn’t show it. With a decisive flick the bespectacled striker powered the little-white ball home, prompting absolute bedlam. His 3cm teammates may be incapable of showing much emotion, but Bob and his supporters certainly did it on their behalf as they jumped wildly in a limb-flailing scrum.
Regardless of who came out on top, the real winner was always going to be Subbuteo and the increasingly large, ever enthusiastic gaggle of people who play it. Dozens of competitors from 15 nations took to table-tops in the sport centre and Royal Victoria Place – bridging a gap between two, slightly different forms of the game which has emerged in recent years during the three-day spectacle.
In their ranks was Ruby Matthews, a Subbuteo player from Flintshire, Wales, who is delighted to see the game “come back to life”. For the 15-year-old, Subbuteo is about spending time with her dad. “Since we started playing, we’ve definitely got closer because we’ve travelled a lot together and it’s been a great way to be together,” she said.
“I think it’s really good that the game has come back to life, so to speak, and to get more people involved. I think it’s always been quite a struggle for young people to be involved but there is slowly a few more youth coming into the game.”
The tournament also breathed life into Tunbridge Wells, a town known for its royal prefix, being the home of Test Match Special commentator Andy Zaltzman and punk band Soft Play, and writing sniffy letters to the Times. Fans and players flocked into the town in great numbers, enthusing over their love of the game and breaking down cultural barriers deep into the night in Tunbridge Wells’ pubs and Turkish restaurants.
