Fruit Machine Chat

As recent comments have put me in a nostalgic mood, and there appears to be sweet FA of any interest actually happening in the SWP world these days while the sector goes through a regular quiet period / enters terminal decline (delete as applicable), I thought people might be interested in this. Warning: journalistic licence is used.

http://imgur.com/TMYgy

It's an article from the Independent, which I came across when I was having a bit of a tidy up of the spare room recently, and scanned (it's an awkward size so I had to muck about with Photoshop); date not visible, but on the other side of the page is a review of the new blockbuster movie Die Hard, so if imdb is to be believed, I can date it pretty accurately to the first week of February 1989.

So, assuming it's safe to own up after 22 years, anybody round these parts who wants to admit to being the mysterious Tanglefoot?

He's right about Barquest. Right pain in the arse that was to get the money. Give Time Machine or Adders any day

I presume by 15/16th generation they are talking about GUAB which had been the main workhorse through 1987/88 but was up to the umpteenth set of Qs by 1989 and was getting played out. But that hardly matted as by then Barcrest came back into the market big time and brought out a series of machines that were even easier. LOL

Bit tenuous, but Tanglefoot is an ale. Do we have a CAMRA enthusiast on here ?

It could be my cousin Kevin: He's got a degree in Economics, Maths, Physics and Bionics.

Mind you he thinks I'm a cabbage because I hate University Challenge....

Interesting article that - thanks for posting it.

Blimey. I actually remember that exact article from when it first appeared - the specific details of the policeman thinking the guy had nicked the pound coins and the idea that in Oxford you left a cigarette on a machine to show it had been 'played'. I can only remember one other newspaper article from the same era, which interviewed two guys who played the machines as a pair around the North East. The article showed a photo of them both wearing shades and (I think) hats, and I remember bumping into them in a pub in York around 1990/91.

It's an interesting historical note that at the time SWPs were to some extent viewed as more enticing to Joe Public than AWPs and more likely to lure them into gambling. Given that AWPs now have £70 JPs while SWP games in many cases have lower realistic JPs than back in 1989 and are often hugely harder, it's unlikely anyone would venture the same opinion now!

I've no idea who Tanglefoot is/was; Harry's idea that he was a real ale fan is possible - the said beer certainly seems to have been around a wee while:

http://www.hall-woodhouse.co.uk/beers/b ... lefoot.asp

Lots of the older guys seem to have found it difficult to adapt to multigame machines, have not found the same buzz or financial rewards, or have simply found something else to do with their lives - someone in their 40s back then would now be close to retirement age!

Great article - very interesting and well-written.

I too would be interested to know who Tanglefoot (or any of the other namechecked players) are!

Nil Satis wrote: I can only remember one other newspaper article from the same era, which interviewed two guys who played the machines as a pair around the North East. The article showed a photo of them both wearing shades and (I think) hats, and I remember bumping into them in a pub in York around 1990/91.

The guy in this article was an associate of mine back in the day. The Blues Brothers thing was really just a stunt for the newspaper article and they also appeared in a piece for the 10x10 strand on BBC TV. The other "Blues Brother" involved wasn't actually a player, he was some drunken Irish guy who set the thing up.

There was a brief flurry of interest from the media about this time. Two things happened to me as a result of this article, and people getting in touch with the journo (who was a friend of mine, which was why we talked to him in the first place - I was "Tim", by the way):

a) we were approached to appear as a feature on The Six O'Clock Show on LWT. The director was obsessed with the idea that we all went around in disguise, even when I pointed out that the key was to avoid drawing attention to yourself, rather than walking into a strange pub wearing shades and a big hat and a false beard. Presumably their way made for "better television". Anyway, they were paying, and I was actually quite happy to keep my face hidden, just in case.

I'm trying to find my ancient VHS recording of it, so it'll go up on youtube if I do. Until I discussed it with "Bill" recently, I had forgotten that the presenter who took us out for the day in Windsor and filmed our progress was none other than Charles Colville, shortly before he became the face of cricket on Sky.

b) a man from one of the major manufacturers got in touch and said he'd like to meet up for a chat. We were a bit suspicious but thought there was no harm in at least talking, so we arranged to meet at a neutral venue (the De Vere Hotel in Coventry, oh, the glamour, it was like a Bond movie). If things went well, we might be able to be mutually useful to each other...and hopefully he wasn't planning to bring some hired goons who would take us in the car park and give us a kicking. Sadly it never happened, as he phoned up two days before, and said his boss had vetoed it, so we'll never know what it might have led to.

Impossible to say what the truth is, but in his version of events, his boss thought anyone who won regularly on quiz machines must be doing something iffy, because there was no way anyone could be that good by just using their brain. Thus, he didn't want anything to do with people like us. If true, this was astonishing, coming from someone who was supposed to know the business (and maybe explains why we didn't get tougher machines a lot earlier).

I personally always deprecated people who sought out publicity in the press and TV. At the time my feeling was that such an easy gravy train was unlikely to last indefinitely and that people drawing unnecessary attention to it were likely to bring about its end sooner rather than later. And that such publicity always caused a bit of a backlash on the ground. It put the idea into the minds of pub landlords and others that pro players existed where there was none before.

But then like now people had their egos. It can be very frustrating doing something you think is really clever without getting any public recognition.

quizard wrote:I personally always deprecated people who sought out publicity in the press and TV.

I simply don't understand why someone would do that unless they were about to quit. Like the guy doing an Adders and Ladders on The Word. I think it's very amateurish to raise public awareness by giving interviews. Telling a few mates is one thing, but telling the whole country..

quizard wrote:But then like now people had their egos. It can be very frustrating doing something you think is really clever without getting any public recognition.

It shouldn't be: are the financial and lifestyle rewards not enough? .

Still, to the original poster: nice read, it brings back some memories, and if I can find the article I still have interviewing the "Blues Brothers", I'll scan it.

I must admit to having misgivings about it at the time; there again, I never found anybody, at the time or since, who'd read the newspaper piece or seen the TV item. I think it's possible to over-estimate the power of the media sometimes. Companies knew what their machines were taking in and giving out, so they always knew how much they were making - who exactly was taking it out was immaterial, as long as the bottom line was OK.

Plus, as the article points out, I think everyone back then was much more well-disposed to pro players, especially landlords. When the TV bit was filmed, LWT asked a place in Windsor if they could film us actually playing the machine and the gaffer not only agreed, he laid on free food and drink for us. Obviously his main reason would have been that he was happy to get his pub on TV, but he certainly didn't regard us with any animosity.

I guess the point was that we thought it was a bit of harmless fun, and that serious quiz machining wouldn't last, regardless of what we did; certainly not that it would still be going more than two decades later.

I think the awareness of landlords and punters in the early days was much more raised by urban myths and hearsay rather than the few who tried to attain glamour from TV or media exposure.

Notable TV exposures I can remember include an Adders guy wreaing a balaclava on 'The Last Resort' who racked up £99 in the bank during the duration of the show. Most recently was Brewis and his tart on Richard & Judy doing the Big Match on an itbox, which he also did a newspaper piece on.

I lost count in the early days of landlords and punters coming up to me saying 'Are you one of those guys who plays these for a living?', well before the media stuff started. To be honest there was far more heat back then than there is now. I can't remember the last time I encountered any hostility, but that's possibly down to the fact that the games are much harder now and the pros are far fewer.

Let's face it, back then it was practically impossible to go out for a day and NOT bump into another player. The last time I ran into another pro on the road must have been about 3 months ago in Brum.

Notable TV exposures I can remember include an Adders guy wreaing a balaclava on 'The Last Resort' who racked up £99 in the bank during the duration of the show.......

It was no other than Paddy Spooner who had his own agent.Won a jeep on Sale Of The Century and later made loads of dosh on Millionaire.I met him many times and he did have a bit of a superior attitude about him (Dont know why , he got booted out of University( Lancaster?),suppose thats a kind of achievement) and his star turn was to mince round wearing a pair of shorts throughout the year and playing the machine reading The Times at the same time whilst not trying to draw attention to himself!

Despite me appearing to not to like the guy he was , like me open and surprisingly friendly. His propensity for fame just got a bit irritating.He got on Radio 1 afternoon show also.