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The game was invented in Langton Green, near Tunbridge Wells, back in 1947 by a man named Peter Adolph.

He was a keen football fan – he supported Queens Park Rangers – and after leaving the RAF at the end of the war came up with the idea for a new football game.

Mark's dad invented Subbuteo

A very similar game was already on the market, called NewFooty, but it had not been a big success and its inventors seemed not to have patented it.

So Mr Adolph came up with his own version and the rest is history.

His prototype for the little football figures was made from a Woolworths button from his mother’s coat with a washer pushed inside it.

With little more than that made, Mr Adolph placed an advert in the comic ‘Boy’s Own’ to see what sort of interest he would get.

He then went on a business trip to the USA and while he was away, about £4,000 in postal orders were sent to his home address by people desperate to get hold of a set. He rushed home and banked the postal orders, and set about making the game.

He got round this thanks to his keen interest in ornithology – he knew the Latin name for the Hobby Hawk was Falco Subbuteo so he used that Latin word, which is now known round the world as the name of a football game.

He bought a building in Langton Green to use as a factory and set about producing figures. The first sets were not sold with a pitch – the suggestion was that people use an old army blanket and draw the lines on with chalk.

The early basic sets had flat cardboard figures which soon developed to become the more recognisable plastic footballers, each with a neat black short-back-and-sides.

Local people were employed in the factory and others were used to glue the figures together or paint them, working from home.

Flick to kick

The game grew more and more successful, particularly after England won the World Cup in 1966, when everything related to football enjoyed a surge in interest.

In 1971 Mr Adolph sold Subbuteo to major toy firm Waddingtons for £250,000 and soon afterwards manufacturing was moved to a larger building in Tunbridge Wells.

But Kent remained home to Subbuteo until the early 1980s, eventually being moved to Leeds when Waddington developed a system at its factory there to paint the figures in large quantities.

Over the years the game has become so popular it has its own World Cup and European Championship, with professional players even becoming the subject of transfers.

The game has been immortalised in song by bands including the Undertones and Half Man Half Biscuit, while the Austrian rock band Albers wrote a song called Langton Green, inspired by seeing the place name on an old Subbuteo box.

This year game has been the subject of a film called “The Hobby”, made by documentary-maker Clifford Borg-Marks.

Didier Drogba from Chelsea

And when TV presenter Chris Tarrant visited Langton Green for a series he filmed in 2004, he told Mr Adolph’s son Mark the factory where Subbuteo was born should have a blue plaque mounted on the wall to reflect its place in history.

Mr Adolph died in 1994 and Mark, who still lives near Tunbridge Wells, now finds himself regularly asked questions about the game, fielding queries from fans, or being approached for media interviews.

Mark says: “I’m happy to do it, I could talk about it all day. It’s only recently I’ve thought ‘wow it really is something special’. I suppose in a way I’m just trying to carry it on, which I’m sure dad would have liked.”