Football, like its table-top version, was born in England, in the nineteenth century, and from the very beginning the number of its admirers grew unstoppably. Legend has it that the first rough form of table football was invented by English sailors, who could not play football for lack of space on board their ships. So they made primitive lead figures of miniature players, which they used to kick a ball about the size of a ping-pong ball. This is probably the true origin of table football and, just as probably, this is where W.L. Keeling found the inspiration to create football in miniature. Two versions of the game already existed (we are in the 1920s, in an England hit by economic crisis), "Blow Football" and "Shoot", but they lacked realism.
After a long study of how to reproduce the action of a match as faithfully as possible, W.L. Keeling created his table football game, cutting small rubber pedestals for the players' bases and figures out of stiff card. After several attempts he found the right dimensions, made goals out of metal and a ball out of cork. The pitch was a blanket with lines drawn in chalk, and straight away he began writing the rules, introducing the famous "flick" of the finger to move the players. The last thing to be added was the rod to work the goalkeeper. The first edition of the game was a huge success, so its creator decided to sell it, but only after patenting it on 25 May 1929 under the name of Newfooty. The first commercial version was put together with bases made in London by ACME Seals, figures made in Bristol by Robinson and balls imported from Germany. Keeling himself made the goals, from rust-proofed metal in the de luxe version and in a plainer style for the cheaper boxes. A playing area with chalk lines and a centre circle the size of a 78 rpm record completed the set, which was sold only by post (a way of selling that lasted until the 1950s). In 1933 growing business took him to a larger house at 38 Barlow's Lane, in the Fazakerley district of Liverpool, where he could step up production to meet demand from enthusiasts. Their number had grown enormously, even though the only advertising the game had was word of mouth. All this lasted until 1939, when the Second World War broke out and halted the development and production of the game until 1947.
When the war was over, the problem was the shortage of raw materials, which forced a redesign of the game, mainly of its components, so as to keep the selling price affordable. Production was entrusted to Austin de Speke for the figures and the boxes; the balls, now available in two sizes, were made in France, and the pitches in Liverpool and Manchester. It was in this period that the shooting area as we know it today was created. Materials technology began to develop and in 1948 the figures underwent their first radical change. The pedestal, originally all red or all blue (as in today's new Club sets), was given a disc of a different colour on top and was made hollow. This made the figure less stable, and stability was restored by introducing the famous metal stabilising washer, from 1952. Meanwhile, in 1949 plastic began to be used for the player figures and the goals, both made by U.K. Plastics of London.
Between 1945 and 1947 Peter Adolph, an ornithologist with a passion for table football, decided to make the game more realistic, not only in how it played but also in its materials, introducing three-dimensional figures. The result of the first production runs was outstanding, and he decided to patent his table football under the name of Hobby, the English name of the bird of prey. The name was not accepted, so Peter Adolph decided to use only part of the bird's scientific name, in Latin Falco subbuteo. Once he had the patent, he founded the company Subbuteo Sports Games and began producing his game, which was quite similar to Newfooty. Meanwhile, W.L. Keeling reached an agreement with the owners of the photographic laboratory where he worked to start industrial production of his game. Business soon grew considerably, and the original mail-order distribution was replaced by the more traditional route through shops. Meanwhile the craze for these two versions of table football kept growing, and many English football clubs used them to study tactics instead of the old blackboards. Table football went on winning new followers, thanks partly to promotion by famous footballers such as Sir Stanley Matthews and Nat Lofthouse. In 1965 the Newfooty company bought a factory in the Kirkdale industrial area, but shortly afterwards W.L. Keeling decided to retire, selling his business to Subbuteo Sports Games, which was later fought over by the giants of the toy industry. At its peak, 5 million teams a year were made and sold in England alone. The game went through a deep crisis in the last decade, partly because of competition from electronic games. Paradoxically, though, the very computer that threatened to "kill" Subbuteo is now bringing about its revival, as dozens and dozens of players have found each other and got back in touch thanks to the internet.