Team England prepare for Subbuteo World Cup

Professional Subbuteo players have been training ahead of the game's World Cup event in September.

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.

Members of Team England have been honing their skills in Milton Keynes and will later compete at the Subbuteo World Cup in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where the game was invented in 1946.

The Northamptonshire-based sponsors, Weetabix, will provide jerseys and a dedicated "finger physio" to make sure the competitors are in top condition.

The game was popular in the 1970s and 1980s although in recent years it has attracted new younger players.

Fifteen-year-old Ruby travelled from Mold, North Wales to Buckinghamshire to train for the competition, which will include 32 countries.

She was introduced to the game by her father when she was seven.

"I actually picked it up pretty fast and I liked playing," she said.

Team England is hoping to beat Italy, the favourites and defending world champions, who knocked the national side out in the quarter-finals of the last Subbuteo World Cup in Rome in 2022.

Ruby said the game required logic and careful thought to succeed.

"When you attack it's not just hitting the ball now, it's what happens in two or three flicks," she said.

She admitted her friends thought it was "different but cool".

"It would be great to have more young people in the game because there's not as many, over time more children come into it and they really enjoy it," she said.

Production of Subbuteo was based in Langton Green, close to Tunbridge Wells, where the 2024 championships will take place in September.

The chairman of the English Subbuteo Association, Alan Lee, said he was "proud to be from the same county as Subbuteo".

"We're working with Tunbridge Wells Council for the World Cup and they've been very generous with resources and connecting us with the right people to make this the biggest and best World Cup there's ever been," he said.

Team England comprises five teams: Under-12s, Under-16s, Open Men’s, Open Women’s - and Veterans.

Mr Lee said anyone could play the game but it took specific skills to compete in the World Cup.

He explained: "At a sport level you need a lot of concentration, it's a very intense game, some liken it to chess."

Bob Varney, from Woburn in Hertfordshire, who is vice-chair of the association, started playing the game in his childhood.

"Although there's much debate whether it being a sport I tend to think it is a sport at the highest level," he said.

Team England last won the competition in 2006 and Mr Varney admitted while the side was not a favourite to win, they were "improving very fast".

"Certainly Ruby will be thought of as a threat by the Italians... there will be lots to follow," he said.

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