The Dream Team or Photo Real Era was the first Attempt at a Relaunch aimed at the Mainstream bringingreal world players in the mix in an attempt to attract children away from video games like FIFA and PES. It was released under the MB games banner (another Toy manufacturer gobbled up by Hasbro) at the start of 2005 missing the Christmas Rush of 2004 either a ploy to have more attention of just Hasbro not getting to stores in time (they have previous of Subbuteo Product limping in to stores…) Again like the 2000/2001 sets it was a Toys R Us exclusive for the first 6 months. A silly idea if you look back and probably a mistake. The rest of the big name stores like Woolworths etc started selling it in the lead up to Christms 2005… Peter Upton said there wasn’t exactly easy to buy and he barely saw it on shelves minus the odd sighting…

The Big selling point of this set was the fact you could build your “Dream Team” of real world players.. On paper its a good idea but it wasn’t really well executed… Although they did have Training sets that allowed you get Players and bases… It never really became a thing like Panini Stickers or Trading cards like Match Attax etc

I will give it to them the Idea itself is a good idea and a very similar concept in video games works and a version turned up Fifa 2-3 years later called Ultimate Team has gone on to be a billion dollar concept.
Sadly a Real world version didn’t hold the appeal due to many reasons and the fact you couldn’t just buy packs and the game played poorly didn’t help… Whoever had the Bright idea to put the logo on the bottom of the bases really needed there head examining took away any chance of sliding a player more than a few mm before toppling over… When going down the Flat player route they should have just looked a the 50’s flats and copy that base design and im sure the Photo real players would be looked at more fondly than they are now…

The Photo Real Era Ran for 3 years spawning 3 season sets and a Urban Arena set and a Yorkie Easter Egg… it came and went and didn’t make any real impression on anyone really… Kids were not interested, The set was not playable so Adult players were not interested and Finally the decision to not sell full team but a mix and match of players from different collectors put off collectors. As someone who is trying to collect All things Arsenal in Subbuteo the photo real players are Infuriating to collect having to buy sets upon sets just to get players then selling the rest of a set for pennies as its incomplete…


I personally however remember the set fondly after this Was My childhood Era of Subbuteo (sadly haha). I can remember really wanting a set because it “modern” and had real players (proving why they tried the Photo Real Players to get kids). I never got one but borrowed a friends set (2005/06 set)… Safe to say looking back and even to extent at the time I was happy I had my dads set fro the Seventies and never looked back…

For more In depth info on the Dream Team Era Go see Peter Upton’s page http://www.peter-upton.co.uk/photoreal.htm