Guest post by Justin Finch
On the weekend of the 12th and 13th September, 11 players wearing West Ham United colours will be playing in the FISTF World Cup in a place called San Benedetto Del Tronto on the east coast of Italy. These 11 players wearing claret and blue will feature the following famous names: Parkes, Stewart, Dicks, Moore, Martin, Bonds, Devonshire, Peters, Brooking, Di Canio, Hurst.
Recognise the plastic figures?
As a regular reader of WHTID and a season ticket holder in the Betway stand, I will be hoping to use my finger flicking Sports table football (Subbuteo) skills to bring home the World Cup for England either as an individual (Saturday 11th) or as part of the 4 man England team (Sunday 12th).
This event will be nearly 30 years on since I played for England at my first World Cup in Athens, Greece in 1986 using a different team but always in the colours of West Ham United.
So where did this all start?
I began playing the game in 1981 when for the first time I was introduced to Subbuteo at Christmas. That green box was without doubt the greatest present I had ever opened as a child, it contained two teams (England and Scotland, two balls, a green baize pitch and two plastic goals. Within a few minutes of setting up the game I became Brian Moore from the Big Match, running my own commentary with made up football fixtures for my own amusement. My mum thought I had gone nuts, but my dad a West Ham fan fully understood why I was so fascinated.
Within a few months of playing the game, school friends were coming around to play matches and within a year we had formed the Balsall Common Subbuteo Club (a village near Solihull). Within a couple of years I discovered that I was quite good at the game beating all of my friends on a regular basis and then out of the blue came an opportunity to play in the Cheltenham Subbuteo Open Cup, a tournament for players all over the UK. The event had 20+ table top pitches and more than 100 players all competing for a giant silver cup. Interestingly all of the players from our club including myself had a fairly torrid time, because we learned that all of the top players were polishing their Subbuteo figures with a duster. This new discovery was quickly applied at home and we found the game became instantly more enjoyable to play, because the figures were now sliding in straight lines as opposed to wobbling there way to the ball.
Within a few months our village club players all started to improve and we all started to enjoy greater success in tournaments around the country. If you could imagine the characters resembling the Inbetweeners from a small English Village playing in Subbuteo events around the UK, Belgium and France then you could imagine the type of wild trips we experienced as teenagers in the early 80s and on this note I need to say what goes on tour etc…….
In 1985 something magical happened as I qualified to play at the English Junior National Finals at Wembley. After beating all of the other regional finalists I ended up facing the current junior champion Darrell Dunscombe, a Manchester United fan from Stockport. It was my first major final and I lost 3-1 wearing my West Ham shirt and the worse part, one of my heroes Ray Stewart presented the trophies at the end…..I was gutted.
The following year the qualification was ultra competitive because the prize for being National Junior Champion meant you would qualify for the World Cup in Athens, Greece (Waddingtons couldn’t afford Mexico). I had qualified for the national finals again at Wembley and then my journey of success began, with just 22 seconds left on the giant timer I scored the winning goal against a player called Alan Lee, a Chelsea fan from Kent. This was a truly amazing moment because at 15 years of age because I had just won an all expenses paid holiday to play for England at the World Cup in Greece. Darrell Dunscombe my nemesis from the previous year had won the Senior Championship and we became great friends for many years.
Playing in the World Cup was a tough experience though because the players in Italy. Greece and Belgium were of a very high standard and I lost to the eventual champion Mario Baglietto from Bologna, Italy 5-2 and ended up finishing 5th in the tournament.
After the World Cup, Waddingtons Games decided to insure my hand for £160,000 and this publicity led to several national newspaper articles and TV appearances promoting Subbuteo which included popular shows such as Cue Gary, No73, TV AM, BBC and ITV News. One of the funniest moments was when Anne Diamond asked me whether my England shirt was in the colours of Luton Town during an interview on live TV. I didn’t know what to say other than “No this is an England shirt” thankfully avoiding the Alf Garnett “silly moo” at the end :)
After packing up the game in 1992 to focus on travelling home and away with West Ham (Metz away being my favourite trip), I decided to renew my interest in the game at the grand old age of 38 in 2008. The game had certainly moved on with advanced equipment and I discovered that Subbuteo was no longer manufacturing the game and that all of the top players were using equipment by independent manufacturers. Within a few months I found myself with a new team painted in the West Ham colours and I was back playing for England in less than 12 months and I am now officially ranked 17th in the World within the senior category at the end of this current season.
Pic: Representing England at the 2014 World Cup in Belgium
This past season I have been playing for a club in Malta, which meant travelling to quite a few tournaments in places such as Milan, Rome, Mons, Paris, Edinburgh, Cardiff and of course Malta itself with the World Cup in San Benedetto being the climax to an eventful year. Interestingly I don’t get paid any expenses to play and it just goes to show that money is no real motivation in life for some folk. Are you reading Adebayor :)
It remains to be seen whether I can win the World Cup for England with my West Ham team, but I can confirm that I have been training hard in my man cave, which is a dedicated room to the game with some of my West Ham memorabilia on display.
Pic: My West Ham United Subbuteo Training Room
Just on a final note….I have created a special video which showcases my shooting skills with my West Ham team: https://youtu.be/efkx36VF5CE …..I hope you enjoy it and looking forward to a great season with the Hammers. COYI @justin_finch