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.
Subbuteo produced some samples but in 1982 Waddington’s took the decision with axe the cricket game before 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.
A big thanks to D and Jon for allowing us to share these pictures. Jon won a job lot of figures at an auction house around eight 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.”
You can see examples of the great new coloured clothing teams being created nowadays on our Unofficial and new teams page.
Subbuteo Cricket 