| Peter Upton's |
Subbuteo Tribute Website. |
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The Team Colours Project. |
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Parodi Teams 2002-2005 |
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Perugia - West Ham and Specials. |
International Appendices: France, Italy, Germany, Belgium/Holland, Spain/Portugal, Scandinavia, Rest of Europe, and America and South Africa.
Appendices: Team boxes, World Cup 1966, Super teams, The Italian Production Appendix
This is the second page of Edilio Parodi produced Subbuteo teams launched in 2003.
Team Colours.
Perugia (Italy)
Piacenza (Italy)
Portugal
PSV Eindhoven (Holland)
Rangers (Scotland)
Rayo Vallecano (Spain)
This team had only previously appeared in a Spanish range in the early 1980s
Real Madrid (Spain)
Real Madrid 2nd (Spain)
Reggina (Italy)
Republic of Ireland
River Plate (Argentina)
Roma (Italy)
Roma 2nd (Italy)
Roma Europa (Italy)
Russia
Sampdoria (Italy)
Senegal
A team never produced in Subbuteo before, but this was a rather disappointing representation on old figures, in the wrong colours.
Later produced in the new style figure/base. This version is the proper green colour rather than the light blue of the Hasbro based version.
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.
Later produced in the new style figure/base, again with improved neckline!
Spain
Stuttgart (Germany)
Sunderland
Sweden
Torino (Italy)
Tottenham
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.
Udinese (Italy)
USA
WTS had a final batch of this team with blue inner bases.
Uruguay
Valencia (Spain)
Venezia (Italy)
Verona (Italy)
Vicenza (Italy)
Note that this is a short sleeved version, and so varies from the box set team.
Wales
West Bromich Albion
West Ham United
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 filled specific holes on the original range. Parodi had only produced 19 of the English Premiership sides of 2002-03. So Charlton were added here to complete the range. Also, Korea were a notable absence from the World Cup sides (did they think the Italians wouldn't want to be reminded of Korea?). Other sides reflected the geographical location of WTS themselves, as they were based in Scotland and Canada (which also explains the USA 2nd). Quite how Scotland were overlooked in the original range is another mystery, especially as Wales got in.
WTS also requested a couple of "dream teams".
Australia (green and yellow base)
Brazil 2nd (white and blue base)
Unlike Jamaica (see below) the whole team here are a nice tanned colour :-)
Canada (all red base)
Charlton Athletic (red and white base)
Holland 2nd (all black base)
Jamaica (all yellow base)
The black player shown above looks great, but sadly Parodi's painters did this team in the standard form of two black players, and nine white.
Scotland (white and blue base)
South Korea (red and blue base)
This team has the reverse problem to Jamaica - Korea doesn't really warrant two black players.
USA 2nd (blue and red base)
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, here in the McDonalds sponsored kit seen in the relaunch in 1999-2000.
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 that 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 listed South Africa's colours as white with yellow trim.
More Lost Specials.
Another UK table soccer seller asked if he wanted special teams produced was That's Magnificent. Sadly, between planning and production, 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. Amusing, the prototype Cameroon Away had the same problem as World Table Soccer's Jamaica, which was white players! The plus to come out of this event was the launch of the wonderful unofficial Santiago range.
Scottish Premiership Sides.
In December 2003 it was announced that Edilio Parodi would not have a licence to produce Subbuteo equipment for 2004, and this set of Scottish teams seemed to be a last "hurrah". With Celtic and Rangers in the standard range, this teams completed the Scottish Premier of the time. As it happened, the licence was extended into 2004, but these were the last teams available outside of an Astrobase/Subbuteoworld monopoly.
The guys from World Table Soccer advised on team colours, but even then some of the team colours were interesting to say the least. They were the first teams in the standard range to receive both multicoloured Parodi bases, and the long awaited bald and pony tailed players. In these teams the bald and pony tailed players doubled up as the black skinned players in each side.
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 was nice to see the three promoted clubs as the next teams to arrive. These teams were planned to be released with the Scottish sides, but actually arrived a little later, by which time everything was a Subbuteoworld "exclusive", so I've borrowed Pete's pictures to illustrate them.
A further English club side to appear at this time (although not a Premiership side) was Queens Park Rangers. It may seem odd that this side seems to have been produced apart from the other ranges. However, I was told that the new Parodi Club Edition was being sold in the QPR club shop, and it seems likely that the team was produced to go alongside the set.
Subbuteoworld General Specials.
At this time, Astrobase joined with UK seller Subbuteoworld to promote the new range, and teams dried up elsewhere. The range expanded massively under this initiative, and whilst this site has always referred to these teams as "Subbuteoworld General Specials", they were really this by default. You simply could not buy any teams outside of Subbuteoworld or Astrobase.
The teams covered by this heading were those available via the Subbuteoworld website, rather than the ones that were for club members only (see below for details). These teams were "unlimited editions", but many were probably produced in smaller runs than the "100 numbered teams" editions for club members. The first ranges to arrive were small and quirky, a US Major League Soccer range, which featured ten strips, and a Roy of the Rovers range featuring five Melchester Rovers kits through the ages (including a duplicate of the World Table Soccer version). They also had a modern day Bradford Park Avenue produced.
This was followed by a big range of English league teams from what are now the Championship and League One. This was another 40+ sides, and set the tone for Astrobase expansions from then on. Of course, the English leagues are full of teams in similar coloured kits, so away kits were produced instead for a succession of blue/white teams (Ipswich, Millwall etc), red/white sides (Bristol City, Nottm Forest), and white/black sides (Luton, Port Vale) among others.
In addition to this, Subbuteoworld pushed the boat out with two extra ranges using Parodi's "paint your own" teams. These were hand-painted in the UK at a higher quality, but also with a higher price point than the Parodi teams. The ranges covered the English conference (32 different kits including away strips), and the Japanese J-League (16 sides).
The Subbuteoworld Club Specials.
The optimism concerning Subbuteo in this period also resulted in Pete Whitehead launching a new Subbuteo club/magazine in 2004. Part of the incentive package for joining was the choice of an exclusive team each year (included in the subscription costs). Sadly, the expiry of the Hasbro licence, and perhaps a shade to much optimism about interest in Subbuteo (we're all guilty of this) meant that the club only lasted for two years and eight A5 sized glossy magazines. Still, interesting stories were told, and some fascinating historical pictures and interviews printed.
Each year gave collectors a choice from two "Special Edition" club teams. The launch year reproduced two sides from the dawn of the lightweight era. A Burnley kit first produced as ref 334 in 1981, and Manchester Utd away ref 325 which was originally from 1980-81. Both produced on the new Parodi figures and bases.
I felt at the time that this was a slightly eccentric choice but at least it wasn't a dull one. Everyone has their own favourite kits (I would've gone for Tampa Bay, and the original Bradford Park Avenue). On further reflection, any Man Utd kit seems a sensible choice. By the second year, the club was having a International minnow phase, and the teams offered were Puerto Rico, or the Cook Islands. It wasn't stated, but if you didn't fancy these teams and contacted Subbuteoworld, they'd let you have a choice from the standard range instead - which was very fair.
The International minnows theme continued in the limited edition teams that were available to members only. The range was launched with Uganda, but was quickly expanded to include a further sixteen minnows across different World Cup qualifying sections such as Swaziland, Tahiti, and the American Virgin Islands, as well as a couple of non-fifa teams - Cocos Islands and Vatican City. These teams were produced in a run of 100 numbered sets per team. If their was a downside, it was that these teams cost a pound more than the standard sides. Some of these teams were quite popular and sold out within the club era, but it was telling that a few were still on general sale on Subbuteoworld's website as we reached 2009. In addition, Astrobase undercut the specials as we'll see later.
Parodi Teams 2004-2005
With Parodi production allowed to continue through 2004, the above range remained current, with all teams gradually moved to the new figure and base. Most of the teams stayed the same throughout this period despite the majority of the real teams changing kits. That's a real problem these days. A few teams did get updated, and I have tried to cover these in the above list. During 2004, the majority of production seemed to be for Subbuteoworld in the UK, whilst the Italian distributor, Astrobase, was much slower in introducing new teams to the range. However, it is important to remember that Astrobase is run by Enrico Techiatti, who designed the bases and accessories in the Parodi range. I think he was also involved in production, so was there a Parodi range or a Subbuteoworld range or an Astrobase range? Or was it all one big range?
Either way, the English league teams did not initially feature on the Astrobase's Italian website, and other new teams did debut there, rather than at Subbuteoworld. My original list of new teams on Astrobase in 2004 was 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 included the teams promoted to Serie A for the 2004-05 season, and some oddities. Originally, some of these teams were shown with photographs and some just had illustrations. With the confusion over the Subbuteo licence, these teams looked at one time like they might be produced in Zeugo instead, but in the end most found their way into the Subbuteo range. I don't believe they were all produced. For instance, the Arsenal away in this list was the two-tone blue kit from 2002-03. In the end, the yellow and blue kit from 2003-04 was the one that made the range. The teams that did appear in the Astrobase "clean-up" catalogue of 2006 are highlighted. This does not mean that the other teams were not produced though.
Throughout 2004 and into 2005 Astrobase continued to introduce new teams into the range, as shown in their final catalogue.
The Final Astrobase Subbuteo Squad catalogue 2006.
The Parodi licence had finished by 2005, and no new teams were to be produced. This meant a return to Zeugo for Parodi, and the launch of Soccer 3D for Astrobase and Subbuteoworld.
However both websites still had ample stock of the Parodi teams. Although apparently not in production, many of these teams remained available through 2008. Looking at Astrobase in Spring 2009, there were still a reasonable number of Subbuteo sides, but quite a few of these old kits had been switched to the Soccer 3D lists, so perhaps stock was finally running out.The seemingly random nature of production, and changing lists of sales stock makes charting the final years of this production a bit tricky. Luckily, Astrobase helped clarify matters by producing a "final year" Subbuteo squad catalogue featuring "all" the teams produced, that were available to buy from them. This illustrated list of 269 teams surprisingly included all the specials produced for Subbuteoworld including all the club exclusives. So Burnley, the Cook Islands, the minnows, the North American sides, all the Melchesters, the Scottish sides, and all the lower division teams were shown. Only the UK painted stuff missed out. Most of original 2003 range was there in the new figures and bases (Bayern Munich and Piacenza seem to miss out). Where there were small variations in this range (e.g. the shorts on Juventus and Milan), the later version was offered. However, both versions of England (2003 and 2005) and both Napoli kits (2003 and 2005) were included.
If you add the original releases and the Subbuteoworld ones together, you get just over 200 teams. That leaves about sixty extra sides released by Astrobase. These were essentially a sensible update of the original range. There were a few updated kits (e.g. Bolton, Spurs, Dortmund), a few extra away kits (Arsenal, Blackburn, Celtic, Rangers....), and a few extra national sides (mostly European - Hungary, Serbia, Czech Rep, Ukraine etc, but also Australia, Venezuela, Zambia...). The biggest expansion was probably of famous European club sides outside of Italy and the UK (Nantes, Porto, Wacker Tirolo etc). When you look at this list, it seems logical and not too excessive. Yet it was still another 60+ teams produced in less than a year, and certainly paved the way for the huge expanse of teams advertised for Astrobase's successor Soccer 3D.
The final catalogue appears definitive, but of course it isn't. Did you expect anything on this website to be straightforward? As mentioned above, two of the old range were missed out, and I do not know how many later kits did not make it. For example, I own the Messina from the original preview batch of 2004 teams, and that is not in the catalogue. I'm sure there must be more. In addition, some of the 2004 teams were still painted on old style figures. I got the impression that these were not as popular, but Astrobase was still battling to use up all the old Hasbro stock of blank figures.
I have made a decision not to illustrate all these new teams. Well over 250 kits were produced in little more than a couple of years, and with surely only small numbers of each being produced, it does not seem worthwhile to cover them individually at this time.
And so ends another chapter in Subbuteo's history.
International Appendices: France, Italy, Germany, Belgium/Holland, Spain/Portugal, Scandinavia, Rest of Europe, and America and South Africa.
Appendices: Team boxes, World Cup 1966, Super teams, The Italian Production Appendix