Delighted to learn that you lived down a road but not my road. Stuart’s dad was named Nathan and known as Naff, so that family was known in the street as “The Naff Harris Family” to distinguish them from our family. The Naff Harris house was at the posh end of the road. As a teenager I tried to cultivate a contrasting sobriquet for our household, “The Cool Harris Family”, but for reasons I still cannot figure out, I couldn’t get that idea to take off.

GED, I’m not talking about a version of Subbuteo cricket, but the actual Test Match game featured in the main piece. Mine has Fred Trueman in chunky England sweater on the box which was an interesting marketing choice in 1978. Indoor League was still pretty big I suppose (probably on YouTube somewhere – Fred hosted a series of pub game competitions).
I did live down the road, well, a road.

The only person who’s played Test Match? You mean except us?

Not a bot named Stuart (bots hadn’t been invented) – I mean boy. I think it was Stuart-down-t’other-end-of-our-street who had the rugby Subbuteo too.

Oh my goodness that YouTube clip of the Subbuteo cricket is simply awesome.

The rugby one not far behind. I did play that rugby game, although I never really got it (much as I never really got rugby proper), although i did really like that plastic scum contraption. Far more civilised than the real thing.

As for the Test Match version of Subbuteo cricket, Stuart, I do remember playing it at someone’s house but cannot remember which boy in our street had it. This might be a false memory, but it might very well have been a bot named Stuart. You aren’t by any chance Stuart Harris (no relation) from t’other end of t’street, are you, Stuart?

Anyway, I seem to recall that the difference between Club Version and Test Match Version was really to do with the frippery that surrounded the game, not really the game itself. Utilitarian with regard to such matters even from an early age, I didn’t see the point of the posher version, but perhaps there were additional features that passed me by or that I have forgotten.

Feels like there’s some misleading editing in the Subbuteo Cricket video that follows that one too. No way the first delivery arrived at the batter like that. Looked like it put Harmison’s to shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZSTX6KjvLk

We had Subbuteo Rugby. Essentially it was Subbuteo Football with an oval ball, but it did have some nice features. The scrum device was a piece of plastic genius.

There are some highlights of a match on this clip. I’m not sure what is going on in the first half – defending seems to be non-existent. In the second half the defending actually starts happening, giving a full understanding of the tactics of the game. It was fairly balanced between attack and defence.

Players were free to choose which code they were playing, although given the lack of rucks an attack in a game of union was effectively unstoppable. Some tackle limit was required.

I’m not convinced about the goal kicks though; a little creative editing maybe? If genuine they are likely to be the only successful goal kicks ever achieved in Subbuteo Rugby. The first one went (nearly) straight into the burger stand and out again. Nice naming of the burger stand as well; not a Subbuteo standard item I feel.

My set looked like this, btw:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364104150629?hash=item54c64c6e65:g:GoIAAOSwPjVjuyTn

Classy. Classic,

There follows an essay on the topic.

http://www.peter-upton.co.uk/subrule4.htm

The bowling was a sort of catapult, but one which required the player to flick, in a Subbuteo-like manner. The problem, in my experience, was the lack of bounce achieved when the surface (underneath the felt overlay provided by Subbuteo) was my bedroom carpet.

Match reports might well follow in a year or more’s time, if there are references in my juvenile diaries. Naturally there is a 50 year rule regarding the publication of such sensitive material.