Prototype components of the game.
Thomas Jansen joins our videocall not with the usual and obligatory shelf of games in the background – the natural icebreaker and chance to assess someone’s gaming biography – but instead an equally well presented row of football scarves. The beautiful game isn’t one that’s made the proper leap to our tabletops – Subbuteo being the iconic (and unsatisfying) dexterity version of the game. Games like Wembley attempted some of the fun, and innumerable games called things like Score, Goal!, and Penalty, have had punts at representing the sport itself.