Scum on tour: Subbuteo Sankt Pauli!

It was an ordinary (!?!) evening at the Jolly men’s room, getting rid of some consumed beer when I noticed a small sticker on the wall with a Subbuteo Skull figure and the text “Subbuteo Sankt Pauli” printed on. A Subbuteo “veteran” myself, directly locked the target – after the initial “what the fuck is this?” reaction and a little more time facing the wall, I decided that the issue couldn’t be solved in there – next morning found me googling the issue and wasn’t long until I found what I was looking for 😉

Got an answer to my e-mail from Philip (thanks man!) the day after, explaining me all the who-where-how details, inviting me to their next meeting and even leaving for me a set of his figures (he couldn’t attend – outside Germany) in case I wanted to exercise the sport myself! A chance not to be missed, so on Tuesday March 13th evening, instead of going to watch Champions League with almost everybody else, I made a small deviation leading where else? To the Fanladen 🙂

Action!

The action inside was already on. After a quick pause for welcome, found myself comfortably sitting, having a beer and watching action in the table while discussing about the game with my German colleagues, a small group of guys (must be less than 10) varying both in terms of age and experience – from youngsters practicing the game less than a year, to dinosaurs with experience that goes back even to the late 70s, all of them united for the love of the game. Their regular meeting place Fanladen (every Tuesday evening at 8 with 3 (at the moment) high quality tables ready for use), just the ideal spot for this – a surreal experience for myself, since the last thing that I expected from my trip in Hamburg was sitting some Tuesday evening and talking about details like the different center of mass on different styles of figures and the way that affects the gaming tactics! Raw fucking fun!!!

Subbuteo in front, “Pirates, Punks & Politics” in the background 🙂

These guys are not only passionate with the game, they’re organized as well. They have a simple but quite handy website where lots of information on the game can be found via links along with ways to get in contact with them in case you’re interested (they answer as well!). And of course, this is a Sankt Pauli club – this means that all values we all know and share apply here as well. Everybody’s welcome to join except facists, racists, sexists, etc, etc – standard FCSP procedure 😀

Standby equipment (spirit level included!)

Regarding the game itself, had the chance to find out that it has changed dramatically during the years. The shape of figures is completely different, so do the physics. Forget the traditional 80’s figures with the ability to execute curly moves, today’s figures come with a compeletely different base which is forbidding for such moves while is much more accurate for direct moves, turning the game a little into pool 🙂 Just looking at them made the task of using them (2 years after the last time I’ve used any) a little more complex than I initially thought but, when I tried a few moves with them before my friendly game, I thought “now, I’m fucked…” 😀 Fortunately for me, my luck on this evening was SIMPLY SHAMELESS! Managed to get a 1-1 draw, taking actually the early lead with my ONLY shot of the game and conceiding the equalizer some 5′ before full time, after being BOMBARDED IN EVERY WAY for the entire game – these new metal posts and keepers can handle A LOT of incoming stuff 🙂

Souvenir (press timer and run!) shot: Marius, Sven, Oliver (local crew), Greg (the lucky Scum bastard)

Overall, one of the more unexpected and pleasant experiences of the month. Cool guys, cool place, cool game, all these out of the blue. Lots of thanks to the Subbuteo Sankt Pauli lads for the good company, really hope that we will have the chance to repeat this in Hamburg or Athens. In the meantime, better get 1-2 set of “new” figures, just in case 😉

Homepage: http://www.subbuteostpauli.de/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Subbuteo-Sankt-Pauli/520146818030046

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SubbuteoStPauli

e-mail: kontakt@subbuteostpauli.de