Trends

Table soccer: more than a game

“No spinning,” a lanky German woman with a forehead piercing said to me one night at a backpacker’s party in Hogsback. It was about eight years ago. We were playing the game I recognised from American movies and television, called foosball. She called it tischkicker — which I took to be one of the many swear words she said during our three minute match — and had clearly been playing since she learnt to walk. Possibly even before that. She was referring to my illegal attempt to make contact with the tiny, wooden ball; I was literally spinning as many of the rods as I could get my sweaty palms on. “Sure,” I answered, as she blasted it into my goal for the fifth, and final time.

Soccer is one of the most loved and revered games on the planet, so it is not surprising that table soccer is one of the fastest growing games. And as the game of table soccer emerges more openly on an international stage, you find that it is called something different everywhere it’s played.

For example, it is called foosball in the US, tischkicker in Germany, baby foot in France, slug in Zimbabwe, tata in SA, and the list goes on (see www.wikipedia.com).

Although there are several stories that claim the origins of table soccer, they all seem possible and plausible. One that came with a record of a patent goes like this:

In 1923, an English Spurs football supporter named Harold Thornton decided to invent a game that could be played at home. His original concept for the game came from laying several matches down across the box.

A different source says that the game was invented in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, by Alejandro Finisterre, who was in hospital at the time.

Others say that the game was invented in Germany, during the Second World War...

Regardless of where, or how, the game actually came about, it is probably true to life that there are several versions.

Table styles further illustrate the game’s uniqueness to each country. The standard table soccer size is 4 by 2 feet. The brands used in today’s tournaments, as well as in most bars and arcades, are the French Bonzini, US Tornado, Italian Garlando, and the German Tecball.

The basic premise of the game remains constant throughout: a miniature soccer field in the shape of a box, with goals at either end. Eight rods skewer the top of the box to suspend 26 (13 per side) figurines across the field, in a typically strategic formation. The players use these rods to rotate each figurine and kick the tiny ball (which can be made of wood, cork, plastic or marble). The ball enters play when it is dropped through one of the holes on either side of the field. The figurines also mirror one another, giving it a chess-like quality. However, instead of players pensively analysing their next move, they are frothing at the mouth, trying desperately to score goals, screaming and cheering while doing so.

The rules can also vary from country to country, but, according to www.foosball.com, there are three golden rules that apply to all:

» No Spinning, as my German friend pointed out.
» Tables have nine balls, so you play best out of nine, or the first team to score five goals.
» If a ball goes into the goal legally, it is a point, no matter who hit it or what it bounced off.

International Recognition

The excitement derived from table soccer is undeniable. The game is a joy to play. The simplicity and playability of it makes a foosball table in the house as useful as it is in a busy pub. You can never master it, nor tire of trying. And as it has spread throughout the globe, a need for some official organisation has arisen.

Tournaments throughout Europe go back as far as the 1940s. But, a major breakthrough for table soccer as a recognised sport came in 1945 when Lee Peppard of Seattle Washington, provided funds for a Quarter Million Dollar Tour, which ran in the United States until 1981. The publicity this tour gave the sport has played a vital role in getting table soccer the recognition it has today.

In 2002 an International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) was formed to promote and develop the game (see www.table soccer.org). Since its inception the ITSF has been responsible for the major tournaments and PR work involved in putting the game on an international platform.

One of the federation’s chief concerns is bringing table soccer to smaller countries, where the game is still unknown, through an ITSF Development Fund.

A yearly event on the ITSF’s calendar is the World Championships. In 2009, the World Champs were held in Nantes, France, where 40 countries competed in the following divisions: Juniors, Men, Women, Seniors and Disabled Doubles.

In 2006, the ITSF also arranged the first Table Soccer World Cup in Germany, which ran side by side with the Fifa World Cup. With 32 countries competing (including SA), the sport got some much needed exposure. Table soccer was also an exhibition sport at the Beijing Games last year, meaning it could be considered a possible future Olympic sport. This matter was, again, handled by the ITSF.

Table soccer in South Africa

Table soccer in SA, or tata as it’s called because of the noise it makes, has been taking off in the last few years. In September 2008 the SA Table Soccer Championships, hosted by the SA Association of Table Soccer (SAATS), was held in Lenasia, Johannesburg. The winners went to Nantes, France, to compete in the World Championships. Although the SA team was knocked out in the opening round, it was an accomplishment on its own to have made it.

In an article in The Mercury SAATS president, Sudesh Fakir, said “the organisation faced several problems, including a lack of sponsorship… Hopefully, as the sport gains momentum, so will the interest.”

Although we have yet to set up organised national leagues and commercial competitions, these things are set to come with time.

Shahin Furmie of Shoot Games reckons that no race, age or gender group currently predominantly play tata in SA, but that the game is growing rapidly across the spectrum. In a country as diverse as SA, this is a surely a good sign.

Shahin reckons that tata boxes are selling like hot cakes around the country, not just for use in bars and arcades, but in people’s homes, which is where interest and skill develops rapidly — you only need to play pool or darts against friends who own their own table or board, to see how exposure to a game at home is the key to generating skilled players.

With the skill and finesse that our country’s sportsmen are known for, it will be interesting to see how we fare in the 2010 World Table Soccer Champs, when the competition will take place in Johannesburg, coinciding with the Soccer World Cup. The exposure on its own will do this emerging sport the world of good in our country.

And lastly, hopefully by the time I go back to Hogsback and take on an aggressively pierced tourist, I’ll have played and seen a lot more of table soccer to be able to hold my own.