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Peter Upton's

Subbuteo Tribute Website.

The Team Colours Project.

Parodi Teams 2002-2005

Perugia - West Ham and Specials.

This is the second page of Edilio Parodi produced Subbuteo teams launched in 2003.

Team Colours.

  1. Perugia (Italy)

  2. Piacenza (Italy)

  3. Portugal

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  4. PSV Eindhoven (Holland)

  5. Rangers (Scotland)

  6. Rayo Vallecano (Spain)

    • The first time this team has appeared in Subbuteo.

  7. Real Madrid (Spain)

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  8. Real Madrid 2nd (Spain)

  9. Reggina (Italy)

  10. Republic of Ireland

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  1. River Plate (Argentina)

  2. Roma (Italy)

  3. Roma 2nd (Italy)

  4. Roma Europa (Italy)

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  5. Russia

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  6. Sampdoria (Italy)

  7. Senegal

    • A team never produced in Subbuteo before, but this is a rather disappointing representation on old figures. I'm not too sure the kit is right either.

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base. This version is the proper green colour rather than the light blue of the Hasbro based version.

  8. Southampton

    • The eagle-eyed will have spotted that this is the same team as PSV Eindhoven. However, Greg at World Table Soccer says that their later batch was a better quality, and had a v-neck.

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base, again with improved neckline!

  9. Spain

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  10. Stuttgart (Germany)

  1. Sunderland

  2. Sweden

    • Now produced in the new style figure/base.

  3. Torino (Italy)

  4. Tottenham

  5. Turkey

    • The Turley sides provided to WTS had white shorts, and were very similar to Stuttgart.
      However, a version with red shorts and socks also exists.

  6. Udinese (Italy)

  7. USA

    • WTS had a final batch of this team with blue inner bases.

  8. Uruguay

  9. Valencia (Spain)

  10. Venezia (Italy)

 

  1. Verona (Italy)

  2. Vicenza (Italy)

    • Note that this is a short sleeved version, and so varies from the box set team.

  3. Wales

  4. West Bromich Albion

  5. West Ham United

  6. The blank "paint your own" side. Or Squadra non dipinta as the Italians call it.

The blank team usually comes with a white base, and the "Squadra non dipinta" box. However, big dealer site Subbuteoworld will provide it with the base colours of your choice, and will even add your desired team name to the box. In twenty years time that'll confuse the hell out of the next generation of Subbuteo collectors!

The World Table Soccer Specials.

After the launch of the initial 115 team range, Parodi asked retailer World Table Soccer if they wanted to have special teams made up. WTS asked for 11 teams, if it was possible for Parodi to do them. WTS also helped to finance coloured bases for these teams. A couple of these specials fill specific holes on the original range. Parodi had only produced 19 of the English Premiership sides of 2002-03. So Charlton are added here to complete the range. Also, Korea were a notable absense from the World Cup sides (did they think the Italians wouldn't want to be reminded of Korea?). Other sides reflect the geographical location of WTS themselves - in Scotland and Canada (which also explains the USA 2nd). Quite how Scotland were overlooked for the original range is another mystery, especially as Wales get in.

WTS also requested a couple of "dream teams".

 

Finally we have two "dream team" kits for your fantasy league matches. There's the magic of Brazil from the 1970 World Cup, or choose the team of comic book hero Roy Race.

The Lost Side.

If you looked at the old WTS preview of kits, one side did not make it to the range. This was South Africa. On the preview it was displayed as a white kit with green trim, but when South Africa played England last year they wore yellow and green (like Norwich). African team colours do seem hard to track down, and WTS could not find out the correct kit in time for Parodi's deadline. To add to the confusion the World Soccer yearbook lists South Africa's colours as white with yellow trim !!

Scottish Premiership Sides.

In December 2003 it was announced that Edilio Parodi would not have a licence to produce Subbuteo equipment for 2004, and a last "hurrah" seemed to be this set of Scottish teams which complete the Scottish premiership (Celtic and Rangers being in the standard range). 

However, the range now seems set to continue, so these teams show how the range might develop for 2004, with even more base colours, and the bald and ponytailed players making an appearance (both these are produced as the black skinned players in each team).

The guys from World Table Soccer advised on team colours, but even then some of these teams are interesting to say the least....

2003-04 English Premiership Teams.

Things move quickly in the world of football, and English football seasons had come and gone almost before Parodi's range was out to retail. So it is nice to see the three promoted clubs getting a look in. These teams were planned to be released with the Scottish sides, but actually arrived a little later. They currently seem to be a Subbuteoworld "exclusive", so I've borrowed Pete's pictures to illustrate them. 

A further English club side to appear on (although not a Premiership side) is Queens Park Rangers. It may seem odd that this side seems to have been produced apart from the other ranges. However, I have been informed that the new Parodi Club Edition has been sighted in the QPR club shop, and it could well be that the team was produced to go alongside this set.

Subbuteoworld General Specials.

These are the Subbuteoworld specials that can be bought via their website, rather than the ones that are for club members only (see below for details). Subbuteoworld have now had several ranges produced by Parodi. The first was the US Major League Soccer range, which features ten strips, and the second was the Melchester Rovers range featuring five Melchester kits through the ages (including a duplicate of the World Table Soccer Melchester Rovers). They also had a modern day Bradford Park Avenue produced. This was followed by kits for the next two divisions of the English football league (another 40+ sides). Where the home kit duplicated another side, an away kit seems to have been produced instead. 

Subbuteoworld are also selling their own ranges using Parodi's "paint your own" teams. These ranges currently cover the English conference league (32 different kits including away strips), and the Japanese J-League (16 sides). These are hand-painted in the UK, and are at a higher price point than the Parodi teams.

The Subbuteoworld Club Specials.

Pete Whitehead of Subbuteoworld launched a new Subbuteo club/magazine in 2004, and part of the incentive package was a choice of an exclusive team each year (included in the subscription costs). The choice for the launch was between two kits reproduced from the dawn of the lightweight era. There is the Burnley kit first produced as ref 334 in 1981, and Manchester Utd away ref 325 which was originally from 1980-81. Of course there will be no mistaking these for the originals because Parodi are using the new figures (and bases).

A slightly eccentric choice maybe, but at least it isn't a dull one. Everyone has their own favourite kits (I would've gone for Tampa Bay, and the original Bradford Park Avenue). I suppose that is why Parodi were selling a blank team. 

The Subbuteoworld club is now selling limited edition teams available to members only. These teams are produced in a run of 100 numbered sets per team. The range was launched with Uganda, and has recently expanded to include a further sixteen World Cup minnows across the different qualifying sections such as Swaziland, Tahiti, and the American Virgin Islands.... The plan is to offer other special teams, either to buy, or as part of the package in subsequent years, so the continuation of Parodi production in 2004 has been a big plus to the club.

All the Subbuteoworld teams are obviously designed to appeal to collectors, covering leagues and countries not previously dealt with by Subbuteo. It's certainly great to have the choice, but whether the sheer number of sides (and short production runs) will be appealing or off-putting to general collectors remains to be seen. (Approx 75 teams painted by Parodi, and another 48 painted in the UK!). 

Parodi Teams 2004-2005

With Parodi production allowed to continue through 2004, the above range remained current, with all teams gradually moving to the new figure and base. Most of the teams stayed the same throughout this period despite the majority having changed kit in real life by this time. A few teams did get updated, and I've tried to cover these in the lists on this site.  It seems as if the majority of production in 2004 was for Subbuteoworld in the UK. This retailer has a huge number of exclusive teams, and because they seem to have obtained an exclusive deal to sell the teams in the UK, it is tricky to work out which new 2004 teams are Subbuteoworld's, and which are a more general release. However, looking at Astrobase, the main Italian distributor, reveals a selection of new sides intermingled with the old ones. The Astrobase website is run by Enrico Techiatti. who designed the bases and accessories in the Parodi range.

The new 2004 teams are as follows:- Arsenal 2nd, Aston Villa 2nd, Cagliari (possibly identical to Genoa), Chelsea 2nd, Dynamo Kiev, Greece, Liverno (possibly identical to Reggina), Lyon Europa Cup, Mallorca, Messina, Palermo 2nd, Panathinaikos, Peru, Siena, Vasco Da Gama, Verona 2nd, Werder Breman and Willem II. The range includes all the teams promoted to Serie A for the 2004-05 season, plus some oddities. Some of these teams are shown with photographs on the Astrobase website, and some just have illustrations. 

Both Astrobase and Subbuteoworld seem to have ample stock of the Parodi teams, so although not in production it does look likely that these will continue to be sold for a while yet.

The production of Subbuteo teams in this period meant that the new Zeugo range continued to be delayed.

More Lost Specials. 

Previously on this page, I mentioned some planned special teams from UK table soccer seller That's Magnificent.com. Sadly, since these teams were planned, Subbuteoworld negotiated a controversial exclusive UK deal with Enrico Techiatti, meaning that other UK retailers were no longer supplied with stock. This meant that these specials only reached the prototype stage. The teams requested were Cameroon 2nd, France 2nd, and the Czech Republic.

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