Confession Moment: It was a really hard story. Yes, because in the origin of table football it was not thought that a dispute of this size could still exist today. Let’s start from the basics: soccer, table football, table football – here you choose based on your experience – is an extremely characteristic and singular game, we find it practically in every bar and is a fundamental part of the history of our cities. How many afternoons throwing coins and tokens with friends, evenings when it was cold, nights when it was too hot.
The football has grown with us and became producer of emotions, moments when we hugged like we were players of Serie A when fortunately segnavamo the opponent’s goal. And that who has also knocked down, turning the knobs out of desperation, then rolling and angering the friend on duty. In the end, the important thing was to hit the ball and not waste time. Above all, to bring out an unstoppable bombshell. Yeah, what times.
The history of table football: where was it born?
With this game, friendships were born and fights were provoked – often for unfair play – and in any case unlike life, at least there, revenge was cheap and almost always sweet. For the lucky ones, it also served to approach. One of the first areas of conquest of one’s personality .
But do we know where a game so typical and so present in everyone’s memory comes from? How was it actually created? Or who was, essentially, your own inventor. If you have ever asked or asked yourself these questions, we will try to answer all the questions here. Here it is, the story of the curiosities about the invention of the table football .
It now seems that clarity has been made: this type of game tables were born between the 1920s and 1930s in Germany. In parallel, some have also arisen in France. However, many people attribute the invention of the table football to a Spaniard, the Galician Aleandro Finisterre, whose centenary marks his birth this year. It seems that, being in a hospital in Barcelona – precisely in the Colonia Puig of Montserrat – while recovering from some injuries suffered during the bombing of the Spanish Civil War, the man decided to create a game to spend the days of hospitalization, favoring the recovery of all those forced, like him, to undergo painful therapies and treatments.
The history of table football: in times of war, relief
It was also that most of the patients, young men and many teenage boys, were there with the same problems. Many of them had suffered deep wounds and amputations. Blame the bombs and other terrible weapons. Many, many, were struggling with serious consequences: it would be difficult for them to return to running after a ball, then the most popular sport in Spain and throughout Europe. So, with the dream of raising the spirits of young people in the hospital, Finisterre decided to create this wooden table and to organize championships. Then, the long days of recovery began to shorten. At least, to be little more fun.
Finisterre was a big fan of table tennis , so he thought that if a sport like tennis became an object of entertainment on a wooden table, why couldn’t the same happen with football? Reversing this idea, he asked for help from the carpenter who worked at the hospital, the Basque Francisco Javier Altuna , who immediately showed himself happy to support him in this mission. Following the instructions given him by Alejandro, continuous and precise, the man manufactured the first ‘ futbolin ‘ with the wooden men painted and assembled with a rod placed horizontally on a veneered wood structure. On the two external sides, an opening with a net: would have been the doors. Here it is, the foosball table.
The history of table football: the question of birth
In 1937, the father of foosball patented his invention. But, it is said, that on the way to France – the transfer to the French territory was due to his desire to break away from the Franco regime – he lost all his work papers, including the patent certificate and the plans for the first soccer. The fault of a terrible and fateful snowstorm. Crazy.
Finisterre spent many years outside Spain, but not only in France: he also went to America, lived in incredible places like Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico . He perfected and marketed his invention, promoting Spanish poetry and culture since, and this is to be emphasized, Alejandro Finisterre was an editor and the greatest conservator and defender of Leon Felipe’s work . He will not return to Spain until 1976, at the end of the dictatorship.
As you can see, the origin of foosball is not just the story of the creation of a simple game for children: it is above all the wonderful idea of a man who was able to give a dream back to a generation of young people who are broken, disappointed and above all wounded by conflicts. war. It was a mission of an extremely intelligent man. A lost or never delivered patent will never make us believe in any other story, because nothing is sweeter than a dream come true .
