• The Main Subbuteo Page.
• The Team Colours Project: Index and Introduction.
• Card and Celluloid teams 1-55; Early Heavyweights 1-54+World Cup
• Classic Heavyweights 1970s: Intro, 1-100, 101-200, 201-300, 301-322+. un-catalogued teams .
• The Zombie Page
• Lightweights 1980s-90s: Intro, 1-100, 101-200, 201-300, 301-400
• Lightweights 1980s-90s: 401-500, 501-600, 601-700, 701-800, 801+Hasbro
• Parodi Production - Zëugo, Intro+2002, 2003 Part 1, 2003 Part 2
• Appendices: English League sides, Scottish League sides, National Sides
• International Appendices: France, Italy, Germany, Belgium/Holland, Spain/Portugal, Scandinavia, Rest of Europe, and America and South Africa.
• Appendices: Team boxes, World Cup 1966, Super teams, The Italian Production Appendix

All these team numbers were first issued between 1983 and 1984. However, this page does not actually contain one hundred teams. A closer look will reveal that there are a lot of gaps between 395 (on the previous page) and 440. This was always a mystery to me because I owned all the UK catalogues for the period 1981-85 as a child and these numbers did not appear in any of them. Nor do they appear in the Italian catalogues. So what were they? As usual, we have some clues, including a couple of team boxes that have recently come to light.

The two teams to surface recently were 395 France, and 417 Genoa. France was identical to the contemporary ref 461, while Genoa was the ref 72 with a badge. So why do they also appear here? The clue is in the teams that around them. 397 Uruguay, 398 Sampdoria, 410 Brazil, 412 Poland, 415 Italy, and 416 Holland are all in the Special Italian C100s series. These teams were sold in special boxes in Italy painted to a higher level of detail with club badges etc. These were originally heavyweight, but eventually gave way to machine printed lightweight versions. Details of the teams can be found in the The Italian Production Appendix. What is very interesting is that the Italian catalogue of 1982-83 showed just four teams in the new lightweight figure, France, Spain, Uruguay, and Sampdoria. If France was 395, and Uruguay and Sampdoria were 397 and 398 respectively, this suggests that 396 was the original number for the new Spain (usually 433).

Sadly, this transfer of numbers doesn't quite work for the 400s, but there are eleven missing numbers here (406-409, 411, 413, 414, 418-421) and eleven other specials to fit in (Argentina, W. Germany, England, Fiorentina, Inter, Juventus, Lazio, Milan, Napoli, Roma and Torino). That looks too good to be a coincidence.

There is less evidence regarding the later numbers, but those from 426 onwards were probably a range of Spanish teams, because all the numbers remaining (424, 425, 431, 439, and 440) are Spanish league sides. The release of these teams coincided with the World Cup in Spain, and I guess they were produced to cash-in on that interest. The Spanish did produce their own team range under licence, using their own numbering system (see the International box sets page). It is possible that this whole range was moved across to the standard range before SSG realised that many of the teams were identical to those already being produced.

It's worth noting that the catalogue posters for 1983 and 1984 have very small pictures, and not very good colour printing. I've blown up the scans a little, but some are still a bit scappy. Also, the colours can vary slightly on each poster, which may be down to the bad quality printing. As many of the teams as possible are taken from the 1985 poster, which has lovely clear illustrations. Stefano's Italian catalogue of the era shows hand painted versions for many of these teams, but these look as if they've been painted using the earlier British catalogues as a guide, rather than the real life kits. Perhaps hand painted teams persisted for longer in Italy.

The Team Colours.

401. Valencia (Spain) 1983-86
402. Algeria 1983-88
     • Machine print appears in the 1992 Italian catalogue
403. Cameroon 1983-87. Then 1991-92
     • Machine prints with and without trim exist.
404. Kuwait - Produced as a 1982 World Cup side, but only in the UK catalogues in 1985-86
405. Honduras - As with Kuwait, this was a 1982 World Cup side, but in the catalogues 1985-86
410. Brazil 1983-98 This long running kit has several slight variations.

412. Poland 1983-91
     • Has two different machine prints
     • Machine print appears in the 1992 Italian catalogue.
415. Italy 1986-96 The number is earlier than 1986, but it only appears in the English catalogue at this date.
416. Holland (Netherlands) 1983-88
417. Genoa with badge. Part of the C100s range, and not catalogued under this number - but a boxed example has been sighted.