Shoot Football Game, 1950s
Later version of a popular football board game based on tiddlywinks. Produced by Berwick Games and endorsed by one of the era's star players, Stanley Matthews.
National Football Museum
Please note: The museum will be closed on Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 March 2023 for staff training.
Brian Leggett says:
In the winter (no TV’s) Alan and I learned to play Monopoly, Drafts and many card games, Pontoon was our favourite and we played for matchsticks! However our particularly favourite was a football game of great skill, called “Shoot”
It was a game played on green felt using two teams each of 11 different coloured tiddledywinks, with a white tiddlywink as a ball and a larger tiddlywink each as a “flicker”. We took turns to flick part of one of our “players” on to the ball. Then we could flick the “ball” to another player, until we got close enough to shoot at the goal whilst adjusting the angle of the flicker for low or high shots. We had small plastic goals with slits in the back of the nets, so we could manipulate the goalkeepers using the small metal rods on their backs to defend the shots. I still have nets and keepers as mementoes.
We usually played “Shoot” whenever we met, well into our late teens, Alan’s team was always Middlesbrough and mine was Newcastle.
Rodger says:
Thanx for the memory Brian.
I loved Shoot ! It was such a simple but effective football game. With practice you could lob or drive the tiddlyball.
I had a piece of well worn blue carpet on my desk marked out in tailors chalk with the lines, and played, often against myself, for hours, simulating cup competitions, etc.
The cardboard goals were replaced with rock solid ones built from an early Lego set – a lot of shots rebounded off the ample post or the bar, but goals hit the back of the net with a satisfying click !
The lead goal keepers were replaced with two free-standing plastic figures that I positioned before taking a shot when playing alone. Unlike those original bow-legged keepers, they could not be nutmegged.
Shoot ! was my precursor to a cardboard Subbuteo set, quickly followed by a Continental Set that accounts for a (happy) misspent youth….
Must try to find some tiddlywinks ?!?!
Geoff Harvey says:
The set I have has wooden goals. I also have the (nearly) complete box with quotes from Jimmy Lawton: “SHOOT” has all the moves of real football.; Tommy Jones: “SHOOT is the best football game I’ve ever seen.; Dennis Compton “SHOOT is a game of real skill; Stanley Matthews: “SHOOT is a grand game. Unfortunately I can only find three of the cast zinc corner flags.