Subbuteo: Plastic fantastic

Bill Shankly did it at home in his living room. Graham Taylor bonded over it with his father in the early 1950s, then used it as a tool in management. More than once it was used to promote the FA Cup final, as in 1976 when Southampton's Mick Channon took on Manchester United's Martin Buchan before the Saints slayed United in a real giant-killing.

Jeff Stelling did it, as did Stan Bowles, Will Self, Alastair Campbell and millions of others. And if you are a man born between 1945 and 1980, the chances are that you did it too. Subbuteo rocked.

It still does in many places, apparently, including Italy. "They're much more bonkers about Subbuteo, and better organised than we are," says a British aficionado, Stephen Moreton, the owner of what is believed to be the largest Subbuteo crowd in Britain. More than 10,000 "fans" can be found at the "Stadium of Fingers" at Moreton's home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Recent pilgrims have included Italian enthusiasts, some of whom have even been immortalised on his terraces. The stadium and its inhabitants were used for the images that adorn a new book, Teenage Flicks: Memories of the Sub-beautiful Game, to be launched tomorrow.

The book, collated by author Paul Willetts, recollects the "Subbuteo days" of Taylor, Stelling, Bowles, Self, Campbell and 25 others, illustrated with reconstructions of famous moments staged with Subbuteo figures. "I hope the pictures in some way conjure that kid's eye view of playing the game on your bedroom floor," says Willetts. "It really was Arsenal versus Liverpool, and your imagination provided the atmosphere."

The photographs are wryly humorous (captioned as if this is real life, not generic bits of plastic), while the mini-essays – a few of which appear on these pages in abbreviated form – are a stroll down memory lane to an era before computer games, let alone plutocrats and billionaire speculators.

For the small percentage of people not familiar with Subbuteo (a 2002 survey that showed 90 per cent of fathers aged 30-plus had owned at least one team), it was invented in 1946 by Peter Adolph, a keen ornithologist who wanted to name it after his favourite bird, the hobby hawk. But the Patent Office said "Hobby" was too vague. Adolph turned instead to the bird's Latin name, falco subbuteo.

In the game's peak years in the 1970s and 1980s there were an estimated seven million regular players worldwide, and more than 750 different kits available. Half Man Half Biscuit immortalised one strip in their 1986 song "All I Want for Christmas in a Dukla Prague Away Kit".

The "heavy" moulded figurines are best known, but Subbuteo has consistently evolved. Contemporary sets (at around £25 for a starter kit including pitch) feature players made from flat cards inserted into button-like bases, just as the original 1940s figures were.

David Baddiel, Writer and comedian

"Me and my brother played it with religious intensity. We'd lay out the pitch in the room where the carpet was least rucked-up. That's where our parents kept their music centre. We'd use it for playing a 45 record called "The Subbuteo Sound". Sadly, I don't still have it. If I remember rightly, the artist was listed as "Subbuteo" and side one consisted of a crowd chanting "Suboo-tee-oh!". There was also general crowd noises. The crowd would make "oohs" and "aahs" at completely the wrong moments. We invested in a grandstand and some plastic picket fencing – the sort you'd see at a cricket ground. Funny because this was the period when Ken Bates was talking about installing electrified fencing round the pitch at Stamford Bridge. Subbuteo should've cashed in on that. They should've sold a battery hooked up to the fence which gives you a little electric shock. They should've sold miniature hooligans, too, which you flicked on to the pitch."

Arthur Smith, Comedian and writer

"Looking back on it, the actual game was fucking useless. I tell you what would've improved it – Subbuteo bungs and dogging. I wonder whether more recent versions include roasting and dodgy agents. I still enjoy Subbuteo, though. It helped fill the time when the weather was so bad you couldn't play proper football. I had Bobby Charlton in my team. And my brother had Pele and a few other foreigners. Not that you could tell the difference between one Subbuteo player and another. We wouldn't just use the teams for playing football. We'd have them fighting each other. They were probably used to simulate homosexual liaisons too. For me, Subbuteo faded out of the picture once I started taking an interest in girls."

Alan Mullery, Former Fulham, Spurs and England midfielder

"As a little kid, I used to play blow football but soon progressed to Subbuteo. It featured flat celluloid figures in those days. When we broke a player, our dad would get some glue and stick it back together. One of my players ended up looking as if he had a terrible limp. I'd tell myself that injured players weren't as good as they had been before their injuries. I'm talking about the early '50s when that was usually the case in the professional game. In 1953 I pretended I was ill in order to get the day off school so I could watch England v Hungary on television. I remember this fat little fellow walk to the halfway line, flip the ball up and balance it on his foot. The fellow was Ferenc Puskas. I was very impressed by him. I started pretending those sort of players were in my Subbuteo team."

Stan Bowles, Former QPR, Man City and England midfielder

"Subbuteo kept me busy while I wasn't on a football pitch. I used to play after I'd finished training. And right from my early days as a professional footballer, I met loads of managers who used it to talk through tactics. I remember that happening when I was at my first club, Man City. Dave Sexton was also keen on using Subbuteo when he took over as manager of QPR. He was very thorough. He'd move the little men around and explain how he wanted us to play. Course we didn't take any notice of him. You know what footballers are like. To tell you the truth, I thought he was talking a load of bollocks. Then I started thinking about what he'd said, and I realised he was quite clever."

Huw 'Bunf' Bunford, Guitarist with the Super Furry Animals

"We were purely interested in the game, not the stands and other accessories. At the same time we were also obsessed by Roy of the Rovers so we joined our two obsessions and created a league which consisted of about 14 make-believe teams [from the comic]. In our league, though, Melchester were crap. So was Roy. He played like he was really fat and out of shape. We'd write all the fixtures in a school exercise book. You'd have an intimate knowledge of every team's imaginary players."

John Inverdale, BBC presenter

"My dad's great passion was woodworking. He built me a really terrific Subbuteo stadium. It had terracing behind both goals and little advertising hoardings – it's probably in my sister's loft. At the time I was playing with the stadium, we had a black labrador called Woof. I recall seeing him devour Pat Jennings – probably just as well that I'd often play without a goalkeeper."

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's ex-director communications

"If I was by myself, I'd play Burnley against Blackburn or Celtic. And we'd win every game, usually in the last minute. We made a clean sweep of the trophies. There was even a Fifa rule change that allowed us to compete in the World Cup. We knocked out England on the way to the final, where we beat Brazil."

Bryan Gunn, Former Norwich, Aberdeen, Hibernian and Scotland goalkeeper

"For quite a while I only had two teams – Celtic and Barcelona. I eventually got Man United as well. Those three teams took such a hammering that lots of the players had broken legs. Sometimes the heads would come off too. Fortunately that doesn't happen very often in real football."

Des Lynam, Sports presenter

"Of all the games and toys I had during my boyhood, Subbuteo was the most significant. I'd play it for hours. Rainy winter days were really enlivened by it. I got so much fun out of it. I enjoyed the technique of the game, of making one player spin around another, of flicking the players properly, all that sort of stuff. I was still playing it when I was a teenager. It was worthy and wholesome, and it stimulated my imagination. Whenever I played it, I felt as if I was both a spectator at a real game and a player in that game."

Will Self, Novelist and 'Independent' columnist

"I'd play Subbuteo with my mate Julian. I never owned a set myself. Our games were hideously competitive. That's why I withdrew from all competition. I just don't have the ability to cope with losing. As I recall, Subbuteo was surprisingly realistic. You could pass the ball accurately and pull off quite fancy tricks with it. You could certainly suspend disbelief in the game, though I remember finding the players' large, hemispherical bases upsetting. Being an imaginative soul, I'd project myself into the position of the players. I almost felt as if I was dragging round a large lump of plastic that had been glued to my feet."

'Teenage Flicks: Memories of the Sub-beautiful Game', Dexter Haven Publishing, hardback, £6.99