ICONIC moments from previous World Cups have been brought to Subbuteo figures for this year’s tournament, by table football shop owner Tom Taylor.
Tom has created Subbuteo figures of Paul Gascoigne crying from Italia 1990 and the famous image of Bobby Moore being held aloft with the Jules Rimet trophy in his hand.
Tom recently made pieces that replicated famous celebrations such as Gabby Agbonlahor, Steven Gerrard and even some players doing backflips.
The store Peldroed Bwrdd in Knighton has a backlog of orders and Tom is working hard to create and shape the players to meet demand.
Mr Taylor, who has been playing Subbuteo for more than 30 years and has made tens of thousands of models, said: “We were going to put a window display up for the World Cup. I thought we had to do something for the tournament and the moment we all remember or have been told about is 1966.
“The iconic footage of ‘they think its all over’ and the famous ‘goal that never was’ are hard to re-create, but the image of Bobby Moore raised up is something that we could.”
But Tom wanted to make sure his Welsh customers in the town were happy and created the Gascoigne moment. Tom added: “Being Welsh we thought we should do tears for the World Cup. In terms of Gazza, we all had to feel for him, he cried for the nation.”
Each sculpture that Tom makes takes about a week to re-create but the Bobby Moore model took longer than the rest as Tom had to recreate, shape and model three moulds and put them all together. Tom also said that because of its shape, “the Jules Rimet trophy is a pig to model on that scale.”
If England do win the World Cup Tom believes that the shops already high order intake will increase. He said: “If they do win we’ll get inundated with England team requests, we still get a load for the ‘66 team.”
There are already plans by Tom and his painter Colin Lewis, who spectacularly managed to paint Agbonlahor on the back of a Subbuteo model, to create a speculative piece in advance of a possible England World Cup win. The model will be similar to that of the Bobby Moore one and will see Rio Ferdinand being held up by John Terry and Wayne Rooney.
Peldroed Bwrdd also has a large display of the last Wales Grand Slam winning rugby team which shows that Tom and Colin don’t show any bias to sports or nationalities and if it’s worth making, then they probably will.
There is a Welsh Grand Prix Subbuteo tournament to be held on June 19 and 20. For more information about the tournament or the models, contact Tom Taylor on 01547 520096, or email peldroedbwrdd@hotmail.com.