
Tabletop football is a class of
tabletop game
Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a Table (furniture), table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, Tabletop role-playing game, tabletop role-playing games, or ti ...
simulating mainly
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
, but also
either of the codes of rugby, or some other form of football such as
American football
American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...
or
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
. The games employ miniature
figures
Figure may refer to:
General
*A shape, drawing, depiction, or geometric configuration
*Figure (wood), wood appearance
*Figure (music), distinguished from musical motif
* Noise figure, in telecommunication
* Dance figure, an elementary dance patte ...
of players on a bounded playing board or table that looks like a football pitch (field).
Types
Implementations vary:
* The player figures may each be on a weighted or magnetic base, so that one can be flicked across the flat field to strike the ball (which may actually be a disc or a non-spherical object similar to
polyhedral dice) and drive it to the goal between the opposing player's figures.
[ Illustrates various 1965 and later non-Subbuteo models by British, Portuguese, and Swedish manufacturers including ]Alga
Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, suc ...
, J & L Randall, Majora, U Group Holdings, United Toys, and Waddington's Games, and under various names including Table Soccer, Cup
A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...
Final, ('Table Football'), , and . Each player's goalkeeper (in forms of football with that role) is independently movable on a stick, usually in an arc but sometimes in a straight slot, to block incoming shots.
Subbuteo
Subbuteo ( ) is a tabletop football game in which players simulate association football by flicking miniature players with their fingers. The name is derived from the Neo-Latin scientific name '' Falco subbuteo'' (a bird of prey commonly known a ...
is the best-known brand of this sort of game, using tiny models of human players. A competitive sport in its own right,
sports table football, has developed around this style of game equipment. A variation among the movable-piece games has figures whose heads can be pressed down to fire a spring-loaded kick with a moving leg.
[ Provides examples of several Polish-made implementation of the fixed-figures-on-springs type of game (a plastic one, named Football, from the company , and a metal one, ('Football'), from in Krakow. Also illustrates a German game, ('Football Game') by VEB Plastverarbeitung Hedersleben, with movable pieces with actual kicking feet; it uses a ball that is not a sphere but a ]cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertex (geometry), vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edge (geometry), edges, each separating a tr ...
, to limit rolling distance and bring it to a firm stop even if the table is not perfectly level. Button football uses colored disks instead of figurines; game play is similar to that of
carrom and various related games with a disk-flicking action but without a team-sports theme.
* Model figures may be attached to the board with springs or magnets, and flicked with a forefinger to "kick" the ball without moving away from their fixed positions. The board is indented around each figure so that the ball will always roll into a flickable position. The goalie may be independently movable in a slot or on a stick.
* For
gridiron forms of football, a ball-carrying figure may be moved magnetically down-field, with the player trying to dodge the controlled or randomly-moving figures of the opposing player's "team".
* Unrelated except in spirit,
table football
Table football, known as foosball or table soccer in North America, is a tabletop game loosely based on association football. Its objective is to move the ball into the opponent's Scoring in association football, goal by manipulating rods whic ...
(also known as foosball or table soccer) is an in-table rather than on-table game, featuring player figures fixed on turning rods.
History
Inspired by home-made games involving children flicking marbles, bits of paper (as in
paper football
Paper football (also called fingering football, flick football, tabletop football, thump football, or freaky football) refers to a table-top game, loosely based on American football, in which a sheet of paper folded into a small triangle is sli ...
), coins and other discs (as in
penny football
Penny football (also coin football, sporting coin, , table football, tabletop football, or shove ha'penny football) is a coin game played upon a table (furniture), table top. The aim of the game is for a player to score more goals with the pennies ...
and early
button football), and other objects with their fingers to crudely simulate team sports, tabletop football games have been developed and released in commercially available packages under various trademarked titles over many decades. The earliest was
Newfooty in 1929, and this style of game was popularised much further by
Subbuteo
Subbuteo ( ) is a tabletop football game in which players simulate association football by flicking miniature players with their fingers. The name is derived from the Neo-Latin scientific name '' Falco subbuteo'' (a bird of prey commonly known a ...
in 1946 (later also available to simulate non-football sports like
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
and various forms of
hockey
''Hockey'' is a family of List of stick sports, stick sports where two opposing teams use hockey sticks to propel a ball or disk into a goal. There are many types of hockey, and the individual sports vary in rules, numbers of players, apparel, ...
), and in
franchise-branded versions like
Lego
Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...
Soccer
in 2000.
A
computer simulation
Computer simulation is the running of a mathematical model on a computer, the model being designed to represent the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be determin ...
of tabletop soccer was created as a
video game
A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...
, ''
Magnetic Soccer'', developed by
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles.
The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...
.
Organised competition
As a competitive activity – something of a
sport
Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...
in its own right – tabletop association football (some countries call it soccer) with freely movable figures on weighted bases is known as
sports table football, played under rules published by the
Federation of International Sports Table Football (FISTF), with an annual world cup competition since 1993, and Confederation Championships or Cups, hosted in a rotating fashion in one of the countries with a national FISTF-affiliated Association (called Member National Association, MNA). Though originally begun with Newfooty-brand (1929) and Subbuteo-brand (1947) equipment, many specialist companies now produce game pieces, such as bases, figures, goalkeepers, goals, pitches, complete playing board and tables, boxes or coffers for sets and many other fine accessories, for serious players.
See also
*
Electric Football
*
Table football
Table football, known as foosball or table soccer in North America, is a tabletop game loosely based on association football. Its objective is to move the ball into the opponent's Scoring in association football, goal by manipulating rods whic ...
*
Table hockey games
A table hockey game, also called rod hockey game, stick hockey, bubble hockey, and board hockey, is a game for two players, derived from ice hockey. The game consists of a representation of a hockey rink; the players score goals by hitting a smal ...
References
External links
A video of the game being played
{{game-stub
Board games of physical skill