Table football (futbolín)
Futbolín
- Date
- 1937 · confidence low
- Place
- Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- Credited to
- Alejandro Finisterre (attributed)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A table game in which rotating rods carrying figures of players strike a ball on a miniature football pitch. The Spanish version, with players' legs apart, is attributed to Alejandro Finisterre, who patented it in 1937 after being wounded in a bombing raid during the Civil War.
Authorship is much disputed: there are earlier British patents (Harold Searles Thornton, 1921) and Spanish models of 1880-1890 are cited without documentation. Finisterre's patent was lost and his account (wounded in Madrid, idea at the Montserrat hospital) comes largely from himself. The location is approximate.
What it led to
- popularisation in bars and homes in Spain and Latin America
- manufacture in the Americas by Finisterre during his exile
- table football as a game and organised sport