I recently learned that the next seismic developmental leap on the Internet will be focused on gaming, where mega-billions of bucks await. Now, while I confess that during a sometimes-misspent youth I enthusiastically racked up my fair share of replays as a minor pinball wizard down on Southend’s sea front, I’m left stone cold by contemporary video games on phones, consoles or other devices. I’m clearly in a global minority, since according to my informant the mind-blowing improvements in technology mean that, like an out-of-control pinball machine, the gaming income digits will relentlessly spiral ever upwards.

Subbuteo could be seen as a contradiction in terms, as it’s football, but played with the hand

My own reluctance to log on and get gaming is partly an age thing, of course, and also that I have no desire to single-handedly wipe out entire online armies or win against-the-odds world cups as the greatest football manager since Sir Alf Ramsey. Additionally, I find the idea of sitting alone in a darkened room deeply depressing – wearing headphones and staring at monitor screens for countless hours, whilst locked in combat with someone who could be anywhere in the world, aged eight or 80, and known to me by only a gaming alias. Nah. Weird or what?

From my quaint old point of view, indoor games should be played face-to-face, person to person, with accompanying chatter, laughter, sighs and curses, as fortunes swing one way, then the other. Even my solo pinball machine battles were best enjoyed in an amusement arcade, or a tea-and-bacon-butty caff, with a few Mod mates cheering a perfect flipper strike or jeering when a too-forceful nudge set the “game over” lights flashing. But even earlier, years before we rode our Vespa and Lambretta scooters to play the silver ball, I discovered, one Christmas morning, arguably the best indoor game of them all: Subbuteo.

For the uninitiated, Subbuteo could be seen as a contradiction in terms, as it’s football, but played with the hand. Designs have improved over the decades, but my set included one brown football of about the size of a small conker, a green rectangle of cloth with football-pitch markings, two netted goals, and two teams of “footballers”. Outfield players were miniature, moulded plastic figures, each mounted on a bowl-shaped, weighted base. The “goalies” were similar but attached to sticks that slotted under the back of the goals so that the ’keepers could be moved from side to side to make saves. It was a simple game, played on the floor or a tabletop, with opponents using index fingers to let their footballers flick the ball into a pass or take a shot on goal. That was basically it – a primitive pastime compared to today’s online video extravaganzas.

My fiercest opponent was a cousin who was football mad, like me; he was also, like me, a Spurs fan, so even before kick-off there was generally a dispute over whose turn it was to have the white-shirted team. We preferred to play matches on the front-room nylon carpet rather than the Formica-surfaced, drop-down kitchen table. The table was smoother, but its hinged top meant the ball frequently took an unpredictable diversion. The floor was rougher, and the nylon sometimes gave our schoolboy knees a slight electric shock or carpet burn, but we didn’t care because injuries were part of the game. And the flicking finger could be a fickle friend. Too soft and the ball would barely shift or would roll limply into an opposition player, giving away possession. Too hard and it would fly off the pitch and hurtle across the room to disappear beneath the settee. We created league tables and contested FA cup finals, spending hours, days, weeks of innocent fun, the beautiful game in miniature.

That same cousin became a very decent footballer for real, and actually played for Spurs all the way through the age-group youth teams. Eventually he had to choose between signing professional terms or opting for a more secure future. Probably wisely, he became an accountant, and has enjoyed a successful career, but what might have been, eh? My own footballing journey was much more ordinary: kick-abouts in the park, the school team and, when first working as a journalist, as member of a Sunday-league pub eleven. We were a motley crew, some not bad, others more intent on running off their Saturday night hangovers with a hair-of-the-dog pint and a fag at full time.

I was speedy, an overlapping full-back, but my playing days came to an abrupt end in a semi-final cup match. Chasing a misdirected pass, I charged towards the touchline, stretched for the ball and, as my right foot connected, lost balance; the momentum carried me forwards and I heard my left leg snap below the knee as I hit the bone-hard ground. Still in full kit, I was driven to hospital, manoeuvred into a wheelchair and pushed through to A&E – no queuing in those days. The double doors swung open and I immediately saw three more footballers, all in wheelchairs, all in different coloured shirts, and all with a leg stretched out in front of them; there was also a goalkeeper in a green jersey clutching an injured shoulder. “Oh, good,” said the keeper, smiling grimly, “now we can make a five-a-side team.”

Robert Rigby is a journalist, author, scriptwriter and musician