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Anyone remember Tomy Super Cup Football'? Better than Subbuteo!



Goldstone Rapper

Rediffusion PlayerofYear
Jan 19, 2009
14,865
BN3 7DE


Oh, the game play was excellent!

I wonder if Tomy still make them...
 


pasty

A different kind of pasty
Jul 5, 2003
30,179
West, West, West Sussex
Don't remember that one, but another old 70's one I did have was Striker

[YT]9UXWGgjZmnA[/YT]
 


Goldstone Rapper

Rediffusion PlayerofYear
Jan 19, 2009
14,865
BN3 7DE
Thanks, pasty. So you get a player to kick the ball by pushing down his head? :lol:

Maybe it's because those chaps seem to be having so much fun, but it looks like the game play on that was much better than Subbuteo as well!
 


BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patreon
Jul 14, 2013
21,451
Newhaven
Don't remember that one, but another old 70's one I did have was Striker

[YT]9UXWGgjZmnA[/YT]

I had this game before subbuteo, I loved that game and spent hours playing it.
I don't remember the Tomy game though but there is a picture of the game in The Lost World Of Football book,the book also has a couple of pictures of players from the Striker game.
 






mikes smalls

New member
Dec 13, 2006
331
Isleworth
My brothers and I spent hours playing this game. It was a nightmare when one of the balls came off the pitch as they were about 3mm in diameter and impossible to find when they rolled under your sofa.
I seem to remember perfecting a throw in to the striker and seamless swivel sending the ball into the top corner.
 




BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patreon
Jul 14, 2013
21,451
Newhaven
It's clearly not better than Subbuteo is it?

Subbuteo is 100% the best football game ever

I think I spent longer playing Subbuteo than Striker once I finally got it, I had a pitch fixed to a sheet of plywood and loads of accessories, the Co-op in London Road was a good place to go and buy the teams.
A friends Grandmother used to paint Subbuteo players and she gave me a big bag of plain players, I had a go at painting some myself but they looked crap:facepalm:
 




Goldstone Rapper

Rediffusion PlayerofYear
Jan 19, 2009
14,865
BN3 7DE
Harry Pearson writes fondly of Tomy Super Cup Football:

I spent last week on a remote Scottish island. There was no TV, no radio or mobile phone reception and no internet access. This was good as it allowed my companions and me to take stock and focus on the truly important thing in life: Tomy Super Cup.

For those of you unfamiliar with what is undoubtedly the king of all football games I should explain that Tomy Super Cup was produced by the Japanese toy giants in the mid-1980s (the box features a picture of Graeme Sharp-era Everton playing against one of those Manchester United sides containing 11 players who all look like they might be Arthur Albiston) and features two teams of tiny players who are moved up and down using levers, striking the ball with a paddle attached to their feet.

To the eagle-brained reader this may at first sound rather like the popular Casdon Soccer that came out in the 1960s. Casdon's game was endorsed by Bobby Charlton who featured on the box top wearing a bright red cardigan and grinning manically like someone listening to his fiancee's father telling an amusing anecdote about his days in the frontline of the catering equipment supply industry.

However, perhaps in homage to the more rigid tactics of the day the players in the Casdon game stayed exactly where they were. The defenders never left the edge of the penalty area, the forwards tracked back less than Romario on Temazepam. In Tomy Super Cup, by contrast, the players bomb up and down the field spinning and whirring, a blur of industry. This is because the game is battery-powered.

As a result it makes quite a racket. Indeed when it is switched off at the end of a session you have a ringing in your ears akin to that which might be produced if someone stuck a brass pail over your head and invited Kevin Pietersen to clout it several times with a gigantic tuning fork.

My friend who is the guardian of the Tomy Super Cup says that his hairdresser, who used to run TSC tournaments in a basement in west London, first introduced him to the game back in the early 1990s. "You'd go down there on a Sunday afternoon," my friend recalls, "and there'd be a dozen machines all set up with people queueing up to play at them." What happened to these tournaments my friend does not know but my belief is that the council probably shut them down after complaints about the noise from passengers on over-flying jumbo jets.

The other minor problem with Tomy Super Cup is the black-and-white ball, which as my friend says is "the size of a flickable bogey". (Bogeys traditionally come in three calibrations: wipeable, flickable and stick under a work surface and blame it on that bloke from IT with the Red Dwarf T-shirt and the Elastoplasts on his specs-able).

Since in times of high excitement the little players sometimes club the damn thing - in scale terms at least - several miles over the roof of the stadium, it is wise to Hoover the floor before you start. Otherwise you are likely to find yourself attempting to conjure a little magic on the edge of the penalty area with a dried pea, piece of Alpen Nut Crunch, or indeed a flickable bogey.

Despite these quibbles Tomy Super Cup remains the best football game that I have played. Better even than Subbuteo, although admittedly my relationship with flicking to kick was soured by an unfortunate incident. My romance with Subbuteo reached its peak in 1973 when I created my own team, The Flying Falcons, by painting the blue-shirted set that came in the box with crimson Airfix enamel paint.

The Flying Falcons featured the greatest stars of the world game. These included the Czechoslovakia forward Ladislav Petras who was only really in the starting line-up because after he scored against Brazil in Mexico he made the sign of the cross, a gesture which, in the Methodist belt of Yorkshire in which I lived, was so singular and exotic I had to ask my mother what it was.

The Falcons toured the globe defeating all-comers (or at least all-comers that played in the kits of the other teams I owned) until the fateful day when they foolishly agreed to take on a TV Pop XI captained by my pal Minna. The last-minute winning goal by Ayshea Brough was bad enough, but how could Jairzinho, Neeskens and co really continue after they had been totally outthought and outfought by a midfield made up of The Grumbleweeds?

Apart from Subbuteo and the estimable German game Tipp-Kick, complete with its clanking metal players with their chisel-shaped kicking feet and the rock-like immovability of Horst Hrubesch after a hearty meal, the only other game that comes as close to capturing the reality of football as Tomy Super Cup is Balyna Super Soccer in which the players are moved using magnetised rods located under the playing surface.

This is a particularly demented system not least because your opponent can use the reverse polarity of his own magnetic rod to chase your players around the field. As a result the whole match passes by in a frustrating attempt to influence a team who are totally out of your control and apparently unable to fulfil even the lowliest of your expectations - a pretty accurate representation of the actual thing for any fan all in all.


:clap:
 








BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patreon
Jul 14, 2013
21,451
Newhaven
Going to see how his subbuteo skills are first! I can still hear that sound and feel that dreaded feeling of sheer horror when you accidentally crushed one of team...

I'm sure breaking players happened in my house but I had the fencing around the pitch and would put the set up on the table, it did stop the players getting trampled on.

Myself and a good mate used to spend all day playing the game, I'm sure we had a league and would play FA Cup matches, but his younger brother would sometimes play and this would end up in an argument as he used to 'scoop' the players rather than flick them.:nono:
 


Publius Ovidius

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
45,919
at home
Yes..striker where you pressed the head to kick the ball....same sort of principle for the corner takers in subbuteo.

Best thing about subbuteo rugby was the kicker...you could spend hours trying to get the ball over the posts from different almost impossible angles.

Oh yes...also I had the fence around but has the pitch and fence set up on a board. My mate used to pur water on his to make it more realistic ..he was a derby fan and if you remember the baseball ground, you will know what he meant
 






JBizzleBeard

Well-known member
Jan 23, 2007
3,797
Brighton
I'm sure breaking players happened in my house but I had the fencing around the pitch and would put the set up on the table, it did stop the players getting trampled on.

Myself and a good mate used to spend all day playing the game, I'm sure we had a league and would play FA Cup matches, but his younger brother would sometimes play and this would end up in an argument as he used to 'scoop' the players rather than flick them.:nono:

I used to have the fencing as well...still managed to crush a few players though haha. I had a mixture of the real old school cardboard players. They were actually better to control. I had a friend who did this horrible kind of push the player towards the ball motion, that really got on my nerves!
 




Sompting_Seagull

Well-known member
Jun 8, 2011
2,143
North Stand
Have gone and got the lad 'total football' to open in the morning, looking forward to that. Still have my 'Test match' cricket game in the loft, what a game that was...with an extra laccy band the batsmen would clear the lounge let alone the cricket pitch boundary. Also have my crossbows and catapults from my youth too.
 


mikes smalls

New member
Dec 13, 2006
331
Isleworth
Absolutely loved crossbows and catapults.
Test match cricket was excellent too. I wonder what the youth of today would make of trying to aim a metal ball down a miniature drainpipe! I remember using a slingshot technique to increase the pace if the delivery. A well disguised slow ball could be lethal too. Plenty of arguments to be had when the catching fielder was knocked over by the pace of a shot.
 




BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patreon
Jul 14, 2013
21,451
Newhaven
I used to have the fencing as well...still managed to crush a few players though haha. I had a mixture of the real old school cardboard players. They were actually better to control. I had a friend who did this horrible kind of push the player towards the ball motion, that really got on my nerves!

Your friend sounds like my friends brother, we called that push 'scoop'
 





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