Team England subbuteo player hopes to bring World Cup trophy home

Football could still end up coming home this year – but for competitors using a table-top rather than a pitch.

The Subbuteo World Cup is taking place between 20 to 22 September, with players from Bristol qualifying for the squad.

Popular in the 1970s and 1980s, the table-top game sees competitors take turns to flick miniature models of football players around a replica stadium in an attempt to push a ball into a goal.

Aaron Skinner, who plays in the Bristol Subbuteo League and will compete in the World Cup, said: “I can say it’s coming home.”

The World Cup is taking place in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, which is where the game was invented in 1946 by local resident Peter Adolph.

Mr Skinner, who will be representing England for the second time, said he loved playing the game as a child. He decided to re-take up the sport six years ago after seeing an advert for the Bristol league.

The league, which includes teams from Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Barry, Torquay and Cradley, meets every other Monday night in Bristol.

“I joined that and ever since then the Bristol league has grown and we now have 28 players.

“It’s like football but on a board. You get to an age where you can’t play football anymore, you turn to this,” he added.

On what he loves about the sport-based game, Mr Skinner, who works in a bank, said: “It’s the community.

“I’ve been playing the game on and off since I was really young so it would be an amazing achievement [to win].”

He expects the Italians will be hard to beat.

“I think over the last 10 years there’s more playing in Italy than there is in England,” he said.

However, Mr Skinner said to “win for England” would be amazing.

Mick Hammonds, who plays for Team England and Wolverhampton Subbuteo Club, said the drive to Bristol every other week is worth it.

“I love the game obviously but also the social aspect of it, the friends you make worldwide.

“When you have a bad weekend and you’re playing badly and you’ve got a long drive home, sometimes three or four hours home and you’re thinking ‘this is it, that’s it I’ve had enough’, but you can’t, the next tournament comes along, you’re there, every time,” he added.

Mr Hammonds, who owns a transport company, said while he was Staffordshire subbuteo champion at the age of 10, he had a break from the game before taking it back up after his wife bought him a set for Christmas in 2016.

“Of course, me being me, it wasn’t good enough just to play amongst friends, I had to be competitive so here I am playing for England,” he said.

Not only are there representatives from England in the league, Matthew Rowley, a mobile DJ from Cardiff, hopes to bring it home for Wales.

Mr Rowley, who has represented his home country five times, said while there “was a little time in the past where Wales had two of the UK’s best players”, he may struggle to win.

“Those of us who are left, still playing, we’re perhaps not quite at the level of the England lads, we are just behind, a bit like the real Wales team,” he said.

However, Mr Rowley said he “cannot wait” to take part.

“This game requires a lot of skill, lots of concentration and indeed, a little bit of physical effort.

“I love it just as much as I love playing the real game,” he said.