Whilst inventor Peter Adolph will always be the father of Subbuteo, the Italians have a different hero. A man named Edilio Parodi. From the mid 1970s Parodi's factory in Genoa produced the Subbuteo that introduced so many Italians into the hobby. 

Although Parodi imported a lot of his Subbuteo items from the UK, his workers did produce and paint their own teams. Luckily, he also produced his own catalogues, which makes life a little easier for us would-be historians!

This page is an ongoing project looking at the extra production from Italy, and the major anomalies that seem to occur. Forget all the rules, and enjoy the wonderful world of Edilio Parodi.

The 1976 catalogues.

A big thank you to Andy Mason, and Blackjack who kindly sent me photos of these catalogues.

a) Teams 191-195 

These have now been added to the normal team project, but I've included them here too. These are English sides, and they were sold in the UK under these numbers. But they only appear in the Italian catalogues (of 1976).

191. Leeds Utd. 2nd (became 208)

192. Wales (became C500, then 319)

193. Scotland (became C500 then 318)

194. Coventry City (became 206)

195. West Ham Utd. (became 209)

b) Teams 501-528

Possibly more intriguing than 191-195, are these teams which were advertised on a flyer inserted in some of the 1976 catalogues headed up "nuove squadre 1976". The flyer only has pictures, and no club details. A few mint versions of these teams have recently been sighted. They were in the small mid 1970s life off lid box and with the proper number stickers on them thus:

Nearly all these team subsequently appeared in the huge 1978 team expansion where team numbers in the English catalogues leapt from 190 to 321 (I'm reserving judgement on one team!). This seems to suggest that the 1978 expansion was at least partly lead by Edilio Parodi.

501. Avellino (Italy) Became 253

502. Brindisi (Italy) Became 258

503. Lecco (Italy) Became 256, although the socks seem to differ

504. Pescara (Italy) Became 254

505. Rimini (Italy) Became 257

506. Boca Juniors (Argentina) Became 295

507. Independiente (Argentina) Became 297

508. Newell's Old Boys (Argentina) Became 294

509. Rosario Central (Argentina) Became 296

510. San Lorenzo (Argentina) Became 298

511. Colo Colo (Columbia) and Corinthians (Brazil) Became 227

512. Borussia M'Gladbach (Germany) I think! This would be 221 without shorts trim. But then no teams seem to have shorts trim until circa 1977-78.

513. Atletico Madrid (Spain) Became 226

514. USA national team. Became 271

515. Boston Minutemen (NASL) Became 262

516. Washington Diplomats (NASL) Became 268

517. Los Angeles Aztecs (NASL) Became 270 - with shorts trim added

518. Minnesota Minutemen (NASL) Became 263

519. New York Cosmos (NASL) Became 261

520. Philadelphia Atoms (NASL) Became 265

521. Portland Timber (NASL) Became 269

522. San Diego Toros - Kit didn't become anyone - but is possibly identical to No 77 in the standard range.. Confusion with San Jose kit (see below)

523. San Jose Earthquakes (NASL) Became 259

524. Tampa Bay Rowdies (NASL) Became 266

525. Toronto Metros (NASL) Became 264

526. Vancouver Whitecaps (NASL) Became 267

527. Hartford Bicentennials (NASL) Became 260 However, note that the diagonal stripes are reversed on 260.

528. Penarol (Uruguay) Became 301

Its worth noting that the Italian, Argentinean, and NASL teams are all in alphabetical order, except for Washington and Hartford, who've been swapped over (but are the later catalogues right?). The only team that doesn't tie up to the British catalogues is 522.

Originally, looking at the NASL teams alphabetically, it seemed that 522 could be Rochester Lancers. However, a list of team names has now come to light, and 522 was actually San Diego Toros (my idea was okay, but I got the wrong team!). The alphabetical list in the 1979 UK catalogue quotes San Diego Toros as kit 77, and although the picture above isn't completely clear as regards to colour, it does resemble 77, and that's probably why they didn't bother to give San Diego a new number.

The two "San" teams are further confused in the 1981 catalogue, Things are fine in the numerical lists, but the alphabetical list has San Diego Toros as 259, and doesn't mention the Earthquakes at all. Opps.

The Hybrid Figure Era.

With expanding foreign markets and an ever-growing range of complicated kits, it became clear in the late 1970s that Subbuteo Sports Games Ltd would no longer be able to cope with demand using its old hand-painted techniques. There needed to be a way to machine paint the teams, but there was no way to do this with the heavyweight. So a new figure had to be created. This figure was, of course, the zombie.

These seem rushed into production around 1977 because early versions don't even have "Subbuteo" written on the bases. I guess they successfully filled their primary demand meeting role - for instance zombies were the first teams to be sold in Greece. But while the zombie is a nicely balanced figure and the peg bases is a good idea, looks-wise, they are definitely a step backwards from Charles Stadden's delightful heavyweight design.

Certainly the Italian punters were very unhappy with this new figure (I'm not saying the Brits were delighted either!). Anyway, Edilio Parodi decided he could make his own heavyweight figures. But I guess his bases were coming from England, and the new ones would be designed for peg fittings. So Parodi produced a hybrid figure - a Stadden style footballer on a peg. Problem solved. Well almost. Parodi had his hybrids produced by a Portuguese factory, and the results were not fantastic. The casting was poorer than the proper Subbuteo figures, and the figure ended up with either a big head or a little one, both of which look fairly comic. See the International Team Production page for more details on Portuguese teams. Of course, the arrival of the lightweight a year or two later made these figures obsolete in any event.

A heavyweight figure on a peg (502 Roma 1980 version - see below)

A key example of this new figure in action is in the 1980 Italian catalogue. This has a "nuovo squadre 1980" page which features the handpainted  new British lightweights of that year (323-329), plus teams 501-504 plus 506-509 in the hybrid figure thus:

These teams appear in the British catalogue from 1981. There are a couple of important points here. First up, 505 and 510 that are missing from the British catalogues, are not shown here either. So are they in an earlier Italian catalogue, or were they never produced? Also, while the colours are not too good on my picture, one kit is clearly different than the British version. 502 is Roma 2nd in 1981, but here it is "Roma Nuova". A mainly red team, rather than the white one of later years.

The hybrid figure also coincides with the other big Parodi contribution to the Subbuteo back catalogue - the C100s teams. These were special hand-painted teams with extra trim and badges, sold in colourful boxes.

C100s: The Italian Specials.

I'm not sure of the whole period these teams were produced, but they certainly feature in the 1982-83 catalogue. The 1982 catalogue has the specials in a mix of heavyweight, hybrid and lightweight. The website of Stefano Montecchiesi shows these teams, but also illustrates all the h/w or hybrid figures with a lightweight alternative, suggesting that the range carried on for a few years after this. He also shows one extra team not available in 1982-83, and that is Verona.

The catalogues neatly divide the teams into National sides and Italian sides.

National Sides.

This first picture shows the teams as they appear in 1982-83

The second picture shows the teams from a slightly later catalogue.

As you can see, the h/w or hybrid figures are different versions to the catalogue teams, whereas the lightweights are just the standard versions of their day (Argentina 457, Brazil 410, West Germany 445 etc etc)

Italian Club Sides.

The teams below are from the 1982-83 catalogue

Verona (ref 615) possibly the final special?

The Italian teams have been well represented in the Subbuteo ranges, and most of these teams seem to match a numbered team (or at least come close). However, Fiorentina seems to be entirely different to any sides in the normal run (in both h/w and l/w incarnations). The Verona looks like it has a Scudetto which would make it 615. This obviously doesn't feature in the earlier catalogues, but might be a final special. 

Miscellaneous anomalies:

There seem to be plenty of these among Italian production. Here are a few that I've heard about. If anyone can confirm any of these points, I'd like to hear from them.

• Final team number for heavyweights: In Britain, we don't seem to see heavyweights past the 1979 range, which stopped at 322. The 1980 teams (323-329) tend to be lightweight. However, the Italian heavyweights seem to go up to 359, which is where the 1981 catalogue stops (this time period also includes 501-509 of course)
  359 - the final Italian heavyweight ??

• Trim: There are certainly rumours that if a reference wasn't selling well, the Italian painters would add some extra detail (say a collar or trim) to make the figures more marketable. Certainly, some teams do come up on ebay with the wrong trim. (thanks to Black Jack for pointing this out)

• Long Boxes: Seem to have be available alongside the smaller ones until 1982-83. Whether these were produced in Italy alongside the specials boxes, or whether they had just assembled a big store is not certain.

• Early Teams in late boxes: Almost the reverse of the above anomaly. This set was bought sealed in a toy shop in Italy last year -and is a late 1980s box, with hand-painted zombie UK team (ref 65). Are there warehouses in Italy full of this stuff, or are they just in musty storerooms in old toy shops ?? (thanks Paolo for spotting this team, and sending the pics)
   

That's it for anomalies for now, but if anyone has seen any different ones, then please send them in.

Time to choose another destination I think.

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