Subbuteo and me: The story of how a table football game became an icon

Lawrence Lambert delves into the history of the beautiful tabletop game

International world cup tournaments take place around the globe with the old and new generation of players (Lawrence Lambert)

Langton Green was on my bucket list for places to visit before I leave this planet. Before you start looking it up on Google Maps, it’s a small village in Kent, just a few miles from Tunbridge Wells. Its significance will be immediately apparent to those in the know. It was the name emblazoned on the box of every miniature table football game or football team box of Subbuteo (the game was literally manufactured there way back at the start in the early Fifties and on into the Sixties and Seventies).

Last year, I finally made my own personal pilgrimage to the site of the old factory in Kent, to pay my homage to a place which is now a high street printers with little more than a hint in the air of what used to be created on the spot.