Thread: Pinball

A game very close to my heart.
You can play it in all weathers, no silly boots or flashy kit to wear. ( Although I do like to look a little flambouyant when playing with my balls)
As a smoker the game does not impede your performance. In fact smoking whilst playing the game adds a certain risque to your character. ( Think the James Dean Marlboro look)
Ever since I was a young boy I've played the silver ball. From Soho down to Brighton, I must have played them all. Why even in Thailand I took on all comers in the 2002 s/e/a tournament held in Bkk soi 22.
Needless to say, they just handed their pinball crown to me.

I adored pin way back. I lived right on the coast and there was an arcade 100 meters from the house.

Favourite tables - Kiss, Harlem Globetrotters, Flash, Super 8-Ball Deluxe, and Terminator 2 .

Where in Thailand are there tables?

There was certainly an art in being able to keep the cigarette between the first 2 fingers and play the flipper with the 3rd finger. If you left the ciggy on the glass the little street urchins would try and nick it "giz a couple off, mister".

I was the pin ball champ in my local pub in Portsmouth a life time ago. There was always one bloke who tried to beat my score and it was hard work beating him. But I did - callouses on both palms on my hands, forearms like Popeye the sailor man. All good fun!

I stopped playing so much when they put the price up to a pound for three balls and they brought in replay target scores that kept on rising every time you got a replay so you couldn't put 10p in the slot at 10am and be on all day.

In my beach bum days I either surfed or pinned all day. Got barred from a couple of arcades for clocking up 'reepas' and then selling them at 3 for 10p.

what the hell is a reepas?

'Reepas' are replays - if you get a certain score you get a free game called a replay or as we said up north, reepas.

Its an honour to be on a forum with so many talented pin-ballers.

Originally Posted by Gallowspole

I stopped playing so much when they put the price up to a pound for three balls and they brought in replay target scores that kept on rising every time you got a replay so you couldn't put 10p in the slot at 10am and be on all day.

In my beach bum days I either surfed or pinned all day. Got barred from a couple of arcades for clocking up 'reepas' and then selling them at 3 for 10p.

I think I stopped a long time before that - when it was still 6d per game! Me and a group from college would get on early evening in a pub in Southsea and clock up about 30 or 40 replays by chucking out time. And there was always the machine in the student's union bar that if you picked it up and dropped it, it would clock up a new game...

And then table football came along... but that's another story. More callouses on my hands.

we used to cut bicycle inner tubes into little bands about 2 mm wide and then put one round an old 10p coin, gob on it and put it in the 50p slots in the arcades.

Eventually one of us got caught and got took round the back for a severe slapping. That put an end to our criminal enterprise.

Originally Posted by Gallowspole

we used to cut bicycle inner tubes into little bands about 2 mm wide and then put one round an old 10p coin, gob on it and put it in the 50p slots in the arcades.

Eventually one of us got caught and got took round the back for a severe slapping. That put an end to our criminal enterprise.

I used Scotch tape. It had to be wrapped precisely 5 1/2 times around the coin. Used to do a stack of 15 at a time.
Used them more on fag machines though.
Used to rob the fruit machines cronic. Nylon wire with a hook on the end..

Soi 22 Larrys dive.