Part of the Subbuteo sales ethos was that most newcomers to the game would buy one of the sets and then join the upgrade path and acquire further accessories to enhance their enjoyment of the game. Once the game settled down this involved the choice of three sets at any one time at different price points. If you wanted to have a taste of the game relatively cheaply you bought a basic set, or you could buy one of the two more expensive sets and you got a more developed version of the subbuteo experience. If you looked at the page on the early sets you will have seen that there were three early sets although these were only one of these was available at any point in time. There is no point in me repeating that detail on this page.



Once the game was established in the market and the considerable list of accessories well established the game settle down in to the three set pattern for around 20 years. The accepted wisdom is that over the flat era there were four groups of three sets.

The three Assembly Outfits
The Red Box Sets
The Blue Label Sets
The Continental style Green sets but with flat players

The three set rule is a guide and appears to have been broken at various points. In the early years there was certainly a larger box version of the Assembly Outfit available and it should be remembered that sets were made for overseas markets that never appeared in the UK. An example of a 1970s Belgian box set is shown below.



The top illustration above shows one of the shallow 1940s Assembly Outfit boxes. To maintain the cheap entry set this type of set remained available with card players in the Red Box Sets launched in 1953. Renamed the Popular Set it acquired a new orange label.



The next set up in price was the Combination Set which came in a deep square red box to accomodate a pair of the Set N goals with celluloid players. The top of the range was the Super Set which included a pitch. This is one of the most attractive box sets the company ever offered.



I assume all the sets appeared with the standard red and blue teams 1 and 2. We tend to think of the homeworkers who painted the OO Scale figures as arriving later in the subbuteo story. However, the players came assembled in their bases and someone put these boxes together as a set in the early fifties.

During 1955 the sets changed again, freshening up of the boxes with a blue label and a red base box. The box size of the Popular Set increased and the Combination set also acquired a longer box. When you see a photograph of these boxes you may assume they are larger than they were, perhaps close to the size of the Super Sets. It is also easy to confuse the Popular and Combination boxes as they look very similar. The Popular box was a similar height and width to the square red box set but about two and a half times the length and had less writing under the picture on the left of the box than the Combination one. This begs one very obvious question - before reverting to the smaller box in the green sets why did the Popular need such a significantly larger box in this one type than the usual very shallow box? Ashley emailed me with the reasoning that the box allowed greater headrooom for the assembled nets before reverting to the smaller box for the shallow one-piece goals in the green box era. That seems the most likely explanation, but was there one Popular Set with full size goals?



There have long been rumours of a fourth set, an extended Super Set with additional accessories. Its rarity may well be because of a high price although it may only have appeared for a limited period. Ashley has sent me the photograph below which, besides some interesting contents is also quite an unusual box.



You will note it appears to be a blue label set but with a white box. The box is around two inches taller than the usual Super Set to accomodate an additional tray, complete with cotton lift-out handles. The tray is similar to other Subbuteo trays/dividers and it looks genuine. The labelling is PA Adolph rather than Subbuteo Sports Games Limited and it comes with November 1954 Advanced rules, the 1955/56 application for advanced leagues and 1955/56 accessories price list. All this would point to a date of 1955. The pitch is a little unusual in that it is a dark green no shooting area type with whipped edges. The balls are smooth brown FF type and it also contains the referee set and flags. Of course, with all such finds we cannot know what owners might have added.

One additon to the main sets was a five-a side version called Fivesides. This set had a very small shallow box, rather strange low plastic goals and the normal celluloid players. This appeared much earlier than is generaly assumed. We know this because it became a fixture as an advertisement on the back of the Advanced Rules from the early fifties which were reprinted each year and are dated. It was also available in a somewhat larger version with a pitch.



The launch of the OO Scale players in late 1961 required a whole new range of boxes - the green Continental range. The existing three flat Sets were then transferred in to similar green boxes. The Popular Set reverted to a small shallow box.









subbuteo archive sets