For the next in my series of blogposts about old-school pre-computer football games, we turn to one of the smaller and simpler products. "Penalty!" is a simple turn-based card-based game with the expected objective of scoring more goals than your opponent.
The manufacturer was Pepys, a company that was later absorbed into the Gibson group. There's a hint in the footnote to the rules booklet that some licencing from Ernesto Scola of Milan was in place, and it certainly seems that the game was available in many countries. One of its later incarnations looks to have been "Gazza! The Game" and at other times it was known as "Goal!". If you are on the continent you might know it as "Buteur" or "Golazo". There are hints in various places on line that it goes back to the 1950s.
I honestly can't remember now whether my set is my original from the 1960s, or one I have picked up at a later date from a boot sale or charity shop. There are a few around still on eBay. The Gazza version is from the 90s, by which time Milton Bradley had acquired the rights, and again they are easy to find. It looks to be a bigger box with a more durable board compared with the earlier versions, which had a flimsy folding paper pitch.
The rules leaflet says that twelve specialists worked for five years on 18,000 trial games in the pursuit of perfection. To my mind that's 3600 games per year, so 300 games per year for each specialist, thats about 150 hours per year. Nice work if you can get it, maybe.
The best thing about my copy now is the artwork, glimpses of days gone by when boots were exclusively and undeniably black.
Essentially the game is to play your cards in turn so as to try to manoeuvre the ball (in the form of a simple counter) into the opposing goal. It's a game of two halves, and would take about 30 minutes to play. It was marketed as a game for age 7+ and I'm willing to bet that there are a few maths teachers out there who used it as an introduction to two-dimensional coordinates and vectors back in the day. You scored a goal if the ball went between the posts and your opponent had run out of Goalkeeper or Corner cards.Each half ends when the pack of cards runs out. Whether me and my brother physically changed ends at this point for added realism, I can't recall. We certainly did for the many games of Subbuteo.
Once this blogpost has been published, my set is heading towards my grandson, who is making his way through the football age group teams, so far as a solid no-nonsense U9 defender. He's mastered rugged, and we're working on cultured. He really enjoys the games and the training and long may this continue. Maybe this particular Penalty box will end up as a family heirloom, maybe it will be heading back to a charity shop, we'll see.
Thanks for your interest.
Links to previous football game posts on this blog:
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