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The very first Subbuteo figures came on a card that you had to cut out yourself. They were followed by press out cards and then celluloid players. Celluloid players were sold alongside heavyweight players for many years.
Ref 49 - Wolves, Southport. 1966
Press out card Subbuteo players. The centre player is actually on a 'Newfooty' base.
Card players : This is an early 'Newfooty' team. I am not sure of the exact date of this team but believe it may be around 1940s. Newfooty was around in the early days of Subbuteo and was quite clearly very similar.
(l-r) Early Heavyweight, Moulded Heavyweight (a number of varieties of these exist - see Heavyweight Box Sets), Classic Heavyweight, Zombie, Lightweight (Hasbo version, with one piece solid base - before Hasbro took over Waddingtons, bases were two piece), Italian Hybrid - A Heavweight figure on a peg fitting.
Liverpool - Italian Hybrid Team
A heavyweight figure on a peg.
A lightweight goalkeeper on a peg.
To my knowledge 'keepers were not specific to teams, apart from England in the 70s, were they came in yellow and black.
Heavyweight 'keepers came in a wide variety of colours with either white or black shorts. We see far less variety in lightweights, they are usually grey or green with black shorts.
Heavyweight players come on a bar like this early Ref 13 - Blackpool. The plastic is either white or flesh (pink) coloured.
The later lightweight figures come on a peg fitting.
Boxes
Subbuteo team boxes have come in a great many styles over the years. Here are some of the ones I have in my collection. I have given the era were possible but I am no expert on them!
(l-r) early 60s, mid 60s, late 60s, early 60s/late 70s. Early 60s boxes were stapled together.
(l-r) mid/late 70s - 2 versions, late 70s - now smaller and with plastic tray instead of card insert.
The card insert of the longer boxes were replaced by the plastic tray in the late 70s. All the teams I bought as a youngster came with the latter, so I have always treated the longer style boxes with great reverence.
Interesting fact: I now have more longer style boxes!
Special Boxes : C.138 long style England box from the mid 70s. Smaller C.500 boxes were introduced for all the home international sides in the late 70s.
Early 80s boxes. Now with a window and slide in tray rather than a lift off lid. The early boxes came in shrink wrap, when you removed this it allowed the player in the window to escape. Later designs remedied this with a cellophane window; at the same time end flaps were added.
(l-r) Early 80s, early/mid 80s.
The polystyrene inners of these boxes are an improvement from the flimsy plastic inserts of the slide in boxes.
(l-r) Mid 80s, late 80s
The mid 80s version here varies from the last pictured as under the Subbuteo logo it says 'The Football Game' rather than 'Table Soccer'
(l-r) Late 80s/early 90s, early/mid 90s, mid/late 90s, late 90s. Boxes got smaller the tray reverted to green plastic. The introduction of the Premiership influenced packaging.
Other box types exist (I know of at least 9 others), though I don't own any. In the earlier days, box colour and cardboard quality vary quite a lot. Though by and large quality tended to decline over the years.
