Reports from former collectors tell that grown men from Pará were already playing at scoring goals with small buttons around the 1920s. Soon, the game would reach Rio de Janeiro, where, in 1930, musician and publicist Geraldo Décourt published the first book of official rules. “From Rio, button football started to be spread to several other states”, says Elcio Vicente Buratini, vice-president of the National Table Football Confederation, headquartered in São Paulo.
At that time, the game had a very strange name: Celotex, the same as the material the tables were made of. With the popularization of the game across the country, each region has developed its own rules. But the game became serious in 1988, when the National Sports Council recognized button football as a legitimate sport, making official the three sports practiced until today: Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
The main difference between them is the number of touches the player can give the ball at each shot. Players have also evolved a lot over the decades. Initially, they were made from any available material: from coat buttons to pieces of coconut shell. It really took a lot of imagination to see a playmaker of the time there, like Leônidas da Silva or Friedenreich. The marbles required even greater improvisation. In the beginning, it was even worth resorting to breadcrumbs or cassava flour mixed with water. Today, they are made of plastic or felt.
From the 20s to the 21st century
Materials used in button football have changed over the decades
The table
The first fields were made of solid wood – smooth or covered with felt plates – or Celotex, a material made from sugarcane bagasse. Today, the tables are made of chipboard, a mixture of sawdust and glue.
clothes buttons
Between the 1920s and 1940s, most players were made from coat or suit buttons. Some practitioners sanded the edges of them to make them slide better
Files
By the 1950s, plastic tokens, used in casinos, began to replace clothing buttons. In some cases, they were polished on marble stones, with water and sapolio.
watch caps
In the 60s, new stars entered the field. The lids were painted and received application numbers and badges of teams
Acrylic
Introduced in the early 1970s, this material is still used today. Prints are silk screen printed.
Also made of acrylic, the ring buttons are still the professionals’ favorite. According to them, the hole makes the part have a more regular friction with the table
Polka dots, goalkeepers and picks
The balls, which were once made from breadcrumbs, cork and wool, are now made of plastic or felt. The acrylic used in the players is the same material that goalkeepers come from. This resin is also used to produce the pick – the piece used to propel the players around the table – although there are also plastic and mother-of-pearl models.
Alternative materials
To assemble a team, anything goes. There are players made of ox horn, wood and coconut shell