Coloured clothing

In his book “Fifty Years of Flicking Football” Richard Payne describes Subbuteo’s plans for teams in floodlit cricket clothing in the early 80s. The floodlit game was taking off after Kerry Packer introduced it to rescue his initially unsuccessful World Series “rebel” tests in the late 70s.

In the early 80s the NatWest Bank Trophy took over from the Gillette Cup as the major domestic one-day tournament and ushered in coloured kits to the county game. Facebook Subbuteo Cricket Pavilion group member Trevor Spencer worked in Subbuteo’s marketing team in 1981 and told me how Subbuteo nearly got into “Pyjama” cricket, as the coloured kit game was branded in the media.

“Nat west approached us to look at a Nat west special as I think at time the short game format was being televised. I did create a version of the club set branding the accessories and the box Nat west and I think players in coloured kits.

“It never got off the ground as the costs were high and there was not enough margin. Plus Nat West wanted a royalty. 

In 1982 Waddington’s took the decision with axe the cricket game altogether and so these sets became part of the range and reached the shops. The stock was apparently largely destroyed, but two fellow enthusiasts came across samples they were able to buy.

It seems that Subbuteo and new owners Waddingtons also looked at coloured clothing teams as an addition to the Floodlighting box set but these also never reached the full range before the game was axed. Fellow FB group members David and Jon have both been able to acquire examples of samples sent out to retailers.

David, who owns a rare full set said: “Some of the batsmen survived. A few of the full sets went out to retailers but were returned and thought destroyed at the demise of Subbuteo Cricket.”

Jon won a job lot of figures at an auction house a few years ago. He said: “Clearly it was ex-factory stock as a large bag of injured player figures and medics pitch side figures were included and it even had SSG stock docket in the bag.”

Thanks to David and Jon for sharing their knowledge and pictures of these rare sets.

You can see examples of the great new coloured clothing teams being created nowadays on our Unofficial and new teams page.