Here is a letter I posted once on ezboard.
From: Edmund Geer
Some twenty-six years ago I gave Ed McCloud designs on cabinet construction that eliminated the corner ramps by introducing the 3-man goalie and most importantly, my contact at Wilson-Art on the custom laminating process of the playing field. I liked McCloud, even though he could be an egotistic SOB sometimes, to my knowledge he never claimed any ownership of my innovations. Here is brief history of how I came to recruit the 13th man.
I learned to play foosball when I was in High school. I played pretty seriously for about 5yrs and eventually won a National Championship as a novice in the early 80's. After reflecting on the state of things, I stopped playing foosball in 1983 to focus my attention on my family, education and job. I now have a degree from TCU and hold a CPA license. My wife and I have a successful business that allows me to enjoy the game of foosball once more.
Building the first table with a 3-man goalie and a high-pressure laminate (HLP) playing surface is my claim to fame as far as foosball goes. These two ideas came out of necessity. In 1980 I bought a used Dynamo that had new Tornado rods and men. The problem was the hole was huge. I was working as a furniture maker in my uncle’s shop at the time. My plan was to make a new table based on Tornado dimensions using the glass top and corners from the old table. After I had dismantled the old table I placed the glass top against the wall in the shop. As it turned out the glass fell and broke into literally 1 million pieces. Pricing a replacement, I found the cost to be around $85, which I didn't have. In a pinch, I did have some scrap lime green Nevamar HPL and decided it would have to do for the playing field.
In April of 1981, I got a job at General Dynamics and decided to leave my uncles employment. I asked his permission to leave the table in his shop until I could finish it. Well a few days turned into a few weeks until finally my uncle loss patience a told me to get the table out of his shop. During this time I had been contemplating how to put the corners into the table. I couldn't find any easy way to do it and with my uncle harassing me to finish the table, I decided to forgo the corners altogether and buy four extra men to go where the metal stops where. Luckily, I had not drilled the holes for the bushings. Upon laying out the rod and man for the goalie, I discovered the goalie rod had to be moved back toward the back wall in order for the toe of the man to reach the top of a ball pinned against the wall. With that I finished the table and got it out of my uncles shop.
I was amazed how well the table played. The HPL over MDF playing field was so smooth, and the ball rolled perfectly straight, side to side, corner to corner. That was certainly something new to those of us who had been playing on glass top tables. Well, I used the table to practice and even considered the possibility of building the table commercially. At the time Ed McCloud’s company was in a slump. McCloud had dealers across the nation and was only building 5 to 10 tables a month he was also talking about possible bankruptcy. I analyzed the economics and determined it not feasible (the bank wouldn’t loan me the money) to market my table. I decided I had neither the resources nor desire necessary to successfully market a foosball table. At the next Tornado Nationals, I sat with McCloud and gave my ideas to him on the back of an envelope and he in turned incorporated them into the table we play on today. Any way, that’s the story of how that 13th man got on the team. Hope you enjoyed.
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