Originally from RePlay Magazine February 28, 1976
From Table Soccer Digest, Vol 1 No 1, Fall 1986

The Table Soccer Phenomenon

The history of coin operated table soccer can be compared to the growth of an oak tree. Slow sure and ultimately monumental in stature. From a primitive wooden box, some wooden dowels and a lot of imagination, the European game has developed into a professional piece of amusement equipment today, taking its place alongside the flipper, shuffle and pool table as an industry staple. Further, it has even outdistanced its sister games with respect to fan following. The almost cultish adoration of table soccer found in many communities among young and old players alike may ultimately do more for the public image of the coin industry in general than all the public relations programs rolled up together.

The original game we know as table soccer probably originated in Germany during the late 20's and early 30's. We say ''probably'' because some feel the French were working with such games at the same time. But the game did flower in Germany and became a location staple there years before it made its first timid appearance in the United States.

Bud Wachter of Diverse Products (Red Bank. N.J.), a table importer and a student on the history of the piece, recalls that ''practically every village in Germany has their field soccer team which compares to our sandlot baseball teams. Some of the more organised teams have their clubhouse right at the field or a favourite bier stub (bar) where they gather to celebrate their victories or drown their sorrows for losses. Some enterprising club somewhere in Germany probably decided a game imitating soccer was needed back in the old days. They made one and very soon the idea expanded and practically every club had their 'kicker' game. This name stuck and it's still one of the most common names for the game in Germany.''

The German word for field soccer is ''football'' spelled Fuball .

The funny-looking ''B'' is pronounced like two S's. Hence the many corruptions of that word still used in many sections to describe the game. However, the industry seems to be settling on ''table soccer'' as the most common phrase (calling the machine itself a "soccer table'').

The first German soccer tables were very primitive as compared to the present gleaming chrome and Formica offerings we now have on the American market. They consisted of a rectangular box with a plywood playing field. The rods were usually wooden dowels with plain rectangular blocks of wood for figures. The goals were cut out of the end with cloth pockets to catch the balls. They were usually made by members of the soccer club or a local carpenter.

In 1948-49 when Germany started its post-war rebuilding process, several firms started making coin-operated ''kicker'' games. These offerings were really not a great improvement from the original games because plastics, metals and Formica were channelled to more important uses. Eventually there were eighteen different firms making the game. They all had their own ideas about how the game should be made. As a result there were all shapes, sizes and playing features until the game evolved, basically, as we know it today.

''During this process many went out of business until today there are only two firms making the games in all of West Germany.'' according to Wachter. At the same time the French and Italians started producing their versions and there are still several models being made in these countries. Except for telescoping rods on the French models and on some of the Italian models, everyone has settled on a game which is basically universal.

The first soccer games were imported to the United States about 1955 but were not readily accepted. Larry Patterson of L.T. Patterson Distributors (Cincinnati) actually made the first major commitment to commercially large distribution of a soccer table he produced in Germany beginning in 1962. Called ''Foosball.'' a name still under Federal registration to Patterson. The machine made some significant inroads on the American coin market but never to the level that Patterson originally foresaw.

During the 60's those trade people attempting to establish coin soccer found themselves entrenched in a missionary effort. The game was founded upon a major European sport but a relatively unknown sport to Americans. In later years players would learn that coin soccer actually had very little to do with the physical disciplines of the sport they were patterned after and that it was a game on its own. But because soccer table grew so slowly it earned itself an image as "marginal" and as such was really not taken seriously by operators until the end of the 60's Wachter recalls:

''Distributors and operators remembered the slow start-up period which probably contributed to their reluctance to try them again later when an interest did develop. I believe this interest was developed by United States based companies who were involved in selling directly to the U.S. Armed Forces in Europe. The servicemen enjoyed the competitiveness of the game and practically every recreation room had at least two of the games. With some 250,000 men returning to their homes each year all over the U.S. it was a small wonder that when the game was reintroduced in 1969. The game was an instant success in some areas of the country and it has been spreading ever since until now it is one of the most popular and profitable games the coin trade has.'' In addition to the coin operated games, many thousands of the non-coin models are going into home recreation rooms.

It appears that this "European import'' is here to stay, especially with almost ten American factories turning them out at a heavy clip. The skill, competitiveness and practice required to play this game plus just plain fun and enjoyment assures its future and will eventually make it one of the most popular sports of any we now follow so avidly on TV and other media.

Empire & Garlando

''Spinetta-Marengo.'' A rich Italian dessert? A torrid Latin dance? Not quite. It's a small town between Milan and Genoa; more importantly, the home of Renato Garlando and the Garlando, Chevrolet of soccer tables.

Garlando has been in the table soccer business for twenty-five years and is the paterfamilias to his forty-two factory workers An apocryphal story circulates that his father made coffins and that Garlando transformed them into his first soccer cabinets. Influential in the European game industry. Garlando did not enter the American market until 1969. That year he met Joe Robbins, vice president of Empire Distributing, Chicago, at the Milan Fair and Empire subsequently became his exclusive North American distributor.

The marriage had a rocky start. At first and for approximately a year, the Garlando table was rejected. Operators put them on locations, but returned them disgruntled. Nobody understood the game so nobody played it. Even a sixty-day free trial in the Chicago area proved futile. You could have made them into planters. Only in Wisconsin did Garlando gain a quick foothold while languishing everywhere else.

Then Robbins aggressively and patiently promoted it. Time and education were the crucial elements. "It requires time for a strange game to be accepted and both operator and patron had to learn how to play the game.'' according to Empire salesman Alan Zeidman. Once they caught on. It sold ''like Big Mac hamburgers, outdistancing its chief rivals Vulcan and Rene Pierre. From Florida to Montana, from California to Wisconsin. Wherever the four winds blew people were playing Garlando. The heyday lasted five years,'' Zeidman stated.

By late 1973 there was a veritable plethora of soccer table manufacturers. The MOA exhibition devoted an entire room to them. Garlando's most exuberant competition came from the heavy duty Texas style table, and it forced him to revise his own model. ''In early 1975, Garlando's Deluxe and Giant replaced the standard table, and he still remains at the top of the proverbial heap, however precarious that may be.'' Zeidman declared.

''Why is Garlando Foosball so popular? What makes a Garlando table different from other tables? Perhaps Renato Garlando's own manufacturing philosophy provides the answer. He strives for durability and player appeal at a reasonable cost. He is an innovator. He developed the first solid plastic man and then the die mould, and used Formica and metal where competitors used composition board. He patented the spring loaded oilier bushings for easier rod handling." Zeidman said.

"Garlando responds to change. Each year he visits the MOA to survey his rivals and tries to incorporate in his game whatever operators and players want. In the past five years, he has constructed at least a dozen experimental models until he achieved the desired product. "His painstaking efforts were widely accepted." he added.

The Garlando is a fast moving rather than control game. It has the smooth play field glass, hard plastic ball, and the spring-loaded rods, while the control game uses serrated glass, a lighter rubberised ball, and sponge rubber rod cushions.

What is the future of Garlando tables? Renato Garlando is again at work on a new model but the innovations are hush-hush. Perhaps a breakthrough. "The history of the Garlando is not yet finished," Zeidman observed.