WHEN Cayn Matthews dusted off his old Subbuteo set eight years ago, he expected to play “two or three times a year.”
Little did the 56-year-old father know, but his daughter Ruby, then seven, would “fall in love” with the game and become one of its most promising stars.
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Now 15 and soon to sit GCSEs, she will represent England at the World Cup in September.
She is part of a squad of 36 Three Lions, sponsored by Weetabix, to do battle in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where the event will be held for the first time.
Ruby, ranked fourth in the world in the under-16 category, traveled across Europe to play and reached the quarter-finals of the European Championships in Gibraltar last year.
She is heavily tipped for victory in the Eland Cables FISTF World Cup after claiming her first victory in the Majors – the third major Subbuteo event type – in Paris in February.
Ruby, from Flintshire, tells us: “It was incredible, I never expected to win.
“I thought I would do well, but I was in complete shock, I didn’t realize when I won.
“I immediately started playing when my dad picked up his Subbuteo set.
“If it wasn’t for him helping me play I wouldn’t be where I am now.
“Most of my friends don’t know what Subbuteo is and I think it confuses them, but they think it’s cool that I play something so different.”
There are believed to be around five million Subbuteo players around the world, and in recent years the UK has seen a resurgence of the table game.
Alan Lee, 54, chairman of the English Subbuteo Association, believes Covid and the “enthusiasm” of former players are the driving force.
He says: “Membership is up about 600 percent now compared to pre-Covid when there were about 20 members in the national association.
“We have about 200 full members now and our social media groups have about 10,000 people combined.”
Alan, who started playing aged 11, says that for Tunbridge Wells, where the game was invented, hosting the World Cup is “a childhood dream come true”.
He has high hopes for England’s chances at the tournament.
Alan says: “We’re like the England men’s football team – we’ve always had this potential and good individuals, but we’ve never achieved it in the big tournament, the World Cup.
“We won a silver medal and a couple of bronze medals, but we never got a gold medal, so this year is the only one. It has to be.
“Football is coming home!”
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More than 300 competitors from 26 countries will travel to Tunbridge Wells to take part in two World Cups, which will take place on the same weekend in September.
England will send six teams – Under-12s, Under-16s, Under-20s, Open, Veterans and Women – to face each other in 30-minute matches divided into two halves.
Alan says that up to 64 games could take place simultaneously during the early stages of the World Cup and predicts that “thousands of spectators at the same time” will be there to watch.
It will be a special moment for Tunbridge Wells, who remains proud of the success story of Subbuteo and its British creator Peter Adolph, who passed away in 1994.
He created the game in 1947 after being demobilized from the Royal Air Force at the end of the Second World War and it soon became a hit with children in the UK and around the world.
The first Subbuteo World Cup was held in 1987 – the same year that 16-year-old player Justin Finch, then ranked number 5 in the world, insured his right hand for £160,000.
Celebrity fans
Famous fans of the game include football bosses Sir Alex Ferguson and Sven-Goran Eriksson, comedian Frank Skinner, former Conservative leader Michael Howard and punk band The Undertones, who mentioned Subbuteo in their 1980 song My Perfect Cousin .
The game’s popularity began to decline in the 90s as video games took over.
By 2003, annual sales had fallen to 500 per year, down from 3,000 the previous year.
But now an increasing number of youngsters are playing – including Elliott Dieu De Bellefontaine, 27, from Elstow, Beds.
He has represented England in “around ten World Cups”, including leading the Under-19s to a bronze medal in 2017, and has traveled “most of Europe” thanks to the game.
Border Force officer Elliott, who trains eight hours a week to perfect his craft, tells us: “All my friends annoy me.
“I was brought up playing on PlayStations and games consoles, so I’m a bit shocked when I tell people I play Subbuteo – until I talk to the older generations, who love it.”
With the World Cup just four months away, Subbuteo’s English stars are hoping to finally take home gold – and they know victory is within their reach.
In Weetabix’s new competition, Brits can nominate themselves or someone they know who is facing an next challenge or goal they’d like to be driven by, and Weetabix will step in to give them the Weetabix Advantage to help them achieve your goal.
If you, or someone you know – an individual or a group of people – deserves the Weetabix Advantage, tell us why and share your story via https://weetabix.co.uk/bix-by-bix before 5th June 2024 to have a chance.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
