Hi,I'm new to this sight and thought someone on here could help me.
I work for a youth centre in Redditch in the midlands and we recently found a small trophy in the back of a cupboard saying "Redditch Youth Center, Subbuteo world Record, March 1973, Longest match at 122Hours".
This was a real eye opener and as we celebrate our 40th Anniversary in November it would great to confirm that our little center did this great challenge!
If anyone out there has any Information about World Records, especially this one, I would love to hear from you.
Cheers for all help, Rich.

You should ask Mike Parnaby about this - he wouldn't have been in Redditch but he might have broken their record. He sometijes comes on here but more often is found on the Players' Forum (there's a link on the top right of this page, just under the SuperFooty logo).

Mike

Hiya, yes I can answer this.
In the 70's there were several record attempts and most were discounted as the conditions that Guiness set out were often ignored. So for a record to count as valid, it had to meet all their conditions and a lot of paperwork and records were needed to prove the record was valid.

When Richard Jones and I set the record, we had to submit forms which proved that we were never alone while playing and this record had to be signed off on an hourly basis, where the witness had stayed with us for that hour. We needed medical clearance and regular health checks throughout the record attempt. It was harder to do the admin that the record!
Anyway, we set it as 111 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds, and this was verified by Subbuteo and Guiness. However, Guiness then added that the record would not appear in the book, nor would it be recognised after that year end (I forget the year), as they were changing the 'rules' re record endurance events!

I can only suggest the Redditch attempt was not officially valid, although still a great achievement.

The new rules regarding these type of events make it much harder. In our day you got 5 minutes an hour off, and these could be saved up, so we would play for 24 hours straight and have 2 hours kip, eating on the go.

cont................

Now you cannot save up the time, so each hour you must take your break to go to loo, to eat etc, but there is no sleep involved. This makes it much harder.

One of the things Guiness said was that they had made the change because records were being set just by people standing up. What they meant was that the record for a non stop football match was set and were all 22 players playing football all of the time. Or, as they suspected, were 22 players stood on a pitch and kicking the ball every now and then. They were concerned that the spirit of the game was not being adhered to. I can see their point!

Hope that helps!

Many thanks for the reply, it's a little disapointing to find out that our center probably didn't follow the rules, but it was a youth led effort 36 years ago!
The rule changes I understand, so I will need to look in to this a little more if any of our young people want totry it again. Thanks again, Rich.

Hi Rich,

I'm based in Worcester and play in a club in Worcester. If any of your lot ever get the Subbuteo bug, perhaps mention us to them?

We've got a website up and running.....http://wrp7.webeden.co.uk/#

Hi Mike

That's incredible! Well done you Redditch boys, too!