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Like the 1960s sets, the players in these editions were usually those with their feet moulded to their bases. See the Player Types page if you are unsure of what these players look like. I don't know why these figures were used. I suppose it was cost, or ease of assembly, or ease of painting or a combination of these things. It was pot luck which type of moulded players you got, although the "winged shorts" version seems to be the most common in this style of set, with the "walkers" being more common in the 1960s.

You can probably see in the interior pictures above that extra card supports were added to the bigger sets. It is worth noting that the floodlight supports only held an unassembled floodlight. Once these had been assembled, they no longer fitted the support. As it was a pain to take the floodlights apart, the card support was often discarded. 

International Edition Variation.

Here is a very odd interior tray variation spotted by box set expert Karl Warelow. His 1970 version of the International Edition (red floodlights), has a completely different arrangement for the "additional content" inner tray. This was clearly produced to incorporate a team with the new green plastic goalkeeper rod, and shifts the position of all the accessories except the TV tower. The team looks neat, but it is not a satisfactory arrangement for the other items, especially the poor cameramen/manager/trainer set, which is scattered horribly. For perhaps this reason, this interior does not seem to be much used. Later sets return to the more common metal keeper set-up (such as Karl's 1973 set, shown here for comparison).

The Specials. 

The 1970/1974 World Cup Editions. 

A World Cup Edition was first produced for the 1970 World Cup, and this was the first set to have two tiers. The box lid was the same size as the Floodlighting set, but the box was deeper allowing for a bigger range of accessories to be included. 

Here's another quirky bit of set packing from Karl Warelow. His 1974 World Cup set has spaces added for goalkeepers with plastic rods.... but the old spaces for the old 'keepers still exist. The holes have been filled with a spare player for each team (England, West Germany, and Holland).

The Munich World Series 1973-76.

This huge set was only available 1973-76. If the World Cup set of the time was a two-tier version of the Floodlighting Edition, this set was like a two-tier version of the International Edition. It is often seen as the "holy grail" among Subbuteo collectors, just because many of them originally played in this era, and the Munich was an unaffordable want. In truth, like all box sets it isn't all that rare, but that huge box is hard to find in good condition. As with the other sets of the time, all the contents were all available separately. 

The Original Stadium Edition 1977-78

Caught between the old boxed range and the new was this original Stadium Edition. This monstrous set was the first to have three tiers, but was slightly narrower than the International Set. Note that the floodlights cannot fit into the box as they usually did. Obviously designed to show off the new grandstand, it replaced the Munich Edition as the top of the range set. 

1977-80 Re-boxed Editions.

Here is where I came in. My first set was the club edition shown below. These sets were initially produced with card interiors (mine was one of these), but the later ones had the polystyrene trays also used in the 1981 range. These trays help to keep the contents in fantastic condition - but of course, you could not fill your box with extra teams and accessories like I did. 

There is some cross-over between these sets and the earlier ones. The 1977 catalogue showed the new Display and Club Editions, but the old Floodlighting and World Cup set. The 1977-78 box set flyer showed the new World Cup lid but it is on the old set. 

Shown above are two slightly more unusual items from this vintage. On the left is an International Edition with the new lid. This set was dropped in 1977, and this lid does not feature in any catalogue that I've seen. The deletion of this set saw the end of the long box size. Instead the bigger sets added tiers to the floodlighting set. So the Stadium Edition remained at three tiers but the box changed to the standard shape.

The picture on the right shows the first polystyrene insert for the 1978 World Cup set, which still featured the old brown scoreboard. The lid of this set advertised "new floodlights". These looked similar, but had a new battery box with proper connections and switch.

These sets also saw the end of both metal goalkeeper rods, and moulded players. Heavyweights can be found in these sets, but the most common figure is the zombie.