In 1976, Subbuteo released the iconic Green and Tan grandstand. The designer, Keith Buckwell.
In 1976, a 13-year-old Steve Moreton was immediately besotted with this grandstand and set about building what was to become the Stadium of Fingers.
In 2024, the two met for the first time, and subsequently arranged to chat over coffee at the Amelia Scott centre in Tunbridge Wells…
Steve: “Keith, this is a really great opportunity for me personally. A coffee with the chap who designed the Subbuteo Green and Tan grandstand!” 😊
Keith: “My pleasure – always happy to chat about those days.”
Steve: “So how did you get involved in design work?”
Keith: “Straight after school really. The school pointed me in the engineering direction. I went to Tunbridge Wells Technical School for Boys. Left in 1958 and began a 5-year Apprenticeship in Paddock Wood.
Steve: “Sounds like a firm foundation. What did that involve?”
Keith: “Mainly, lots of plastic injection mould design with an outfit called Insulators Ltd. They were a division of M K Electric. I was doing mechanical Engineering classes on day release and in the evenings, and had to work across different departments, spending time in the Design Office, the Toolroom, the Moulding Department and Maintenance to name a few.
Steve: “Sounds like you were preparing well for your career. How did things progress after you‘d finished the Apprenticeship?”
Keith: “I got a great initial opportunity when Roy Tickle approached me. He was the owner of The Medway Tool Company, and was growing the firm, looking for permanent staff, rather than relying on sub-contractors. When I joined, there was just Roy, his secretary and half a dozen toolmakers. When I left 15 years later, the company had grown to 150 staff. They had regular clients – mostly from the toy sector. Well-known ones with household names like Scalextric, Corgi, Hornby, Meccano and of course, Subbuteo.
Steve: “Wow – sounds like your first job was to die for! Now you need to tell me your favourite client was Subbuteo!”
Keith: “Looking back, I consider myself to have been very fortunate. Right place and right time. Although to be honest my favourite client was Meccano. I always loved the kits growing up and spent many happy hours making all sorts of contraptions.
My first job though, was to help with the production of the Scalextric Mercedes 190SL bodyshell, grill and windscreen, and a few other bits and bobs. I remember feeling really anxious when the mould was first opened. You see, my design meant the mould had to slide simultaneously in six different directions – first time I’d tried this…”
Steve: “Sounds nerve-wracking - how’d it go?”
Keith: “Fortunately, all went well, which gave me a great boost – you see I wasn’t an over-confident sort of person and this really did wonders for my own self-belief, particularly for my next project, which was to produce the die-cast body for Corgi’s James Bond Aston Martin”.
Steve: “😲😲😲” “Woah, wait a minute – you designed the iconic Corgi James Bond Aston Martin?” I loved that car! The one with the shield that came up behind the rear window?”
Keith: “I wouldn’t say I designed the car – Aston Martin gave me a pretty good blueprint to go on! 😅
I just designed moulds for the chassis, seating, ejector seat, and yes, that bullet-proof shield!”
Steve: “Oh yes! The ejector seat! 😀
This just keeps getting better! …and we haven’t even got onto Subbuteo yet!”
Keith: “Well, to be honest, when I joined, Subbuteo were a relatively small section of our work, as they hadn’t really developed their accessories that much by then. This was to change through the 1970’s…”
…end of Part 1.
