SCOTTISH PINBALL
& ARCADE EXPO


Date: November 24th & 25th, 2012
Location: The Coachman Hotel, 4 Parkfoot Street, Kilsyth, Scotland

Report by Chris Williams

So it was time….

This year's event was held in North Lanarkshire, in a place called Kilsyth, near Glasgow.

The venue
The Coachman Hotel - the venue

It is a small town that boasts a great bar and grill called Scarecrow Grill, where this writer had the best freshly-made steak pie he has ever had!

Due to an event at the venue on the Friday night, all set-up had to be done on Saturday.

Early on Saturday, most of the video games were set up, with the majority of the pinballs set up a few hours before the show was scheduled to start, which was initially going to be at 11am.

The opening was running a little late, but no one seemed to mind – as the Scottish are very laid-back people!

Entrance was £10 per day.

As you came through the entrance door and into the function room, immediately in front of you was the welcome desk. Just behind that were a few home consoles set up. At different times different ones were set up, but they cycled between; Sega Megadrive, NES, SNES, PC Engine, Atari 2600, as well as a Commodore 64.

Some of the home console systems
Some of the home console systems

Next to them were two cocktail cabinet video games and a few rows of regular video games, including many old favourites such as; Great 100 Mile Rally, Asteroids, two original Missile Command games, Robotron, Centipede, a 4-player Vendetta game, and Outrun, to name but a few.

Some liked that…….

Some didn’t seem to….

There was also a row of games from Japan on the left, and another on the right, including one of my faves - Great 1000 Mile Rally.

Video games to enjoy
Video games to enjoy

Plus, other greats like Asteroids and Missile Command.

Also, the obligatory 'prize-every-time' game you would find in the arcades!

There was also a raffle running through the weekend.

There was also a stall run by John Higgins selling show T-shirts and other arcade T-shirts/hoodies. John also helped sort the power out.

In the other half of the function room on the wooden floor, was the area where Pinball News readers would have been most at home – the pinball section.

There would have been 20 pinball games, but sadly Gottlieb's Incredible Hulk had a fight with a van and came of worst when the support rail it was attached to in the van came off, and the pin - along with others - toppled over.

It was out of the Scottish Open but thankfully not irreparable, and The Hulk will return to fight another day!

So there were 19 pinball machines in total to play over the two days. They were:

  • Black Rose (modified so it now sits in a WPC 95 cabinet)
  • Bram Stoker's Dracula
  • The Champion Pub
  • Fortune
  • Indiana Jones - The Pinball Adventure
  • Johnny Mnemonic
  • Judge Dredd
  • Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
  • NBA Fastbreak x 2 (linked)
  • NBA Fastbreak (separate)
  • Pinbot
  • South Park
  • Space Station
  • Star Wars (Data East)
  • Terminator 2
  • The Addams Family
  • WWF Royal Rumble
  • World Cup Soccer

As with most shows, occasionally a machine went wrong, but it was soon patched up and most of the time all the games were working.

Over the weekend there were two scheduled pinball tournaments.

On the Saturday only, there was the Pinball Mania NBA Challenge. Whilst it can obviously be competitive, it is also designed to be fun, with two 'referees' and a coin toss to decide who plays on which machine. The winner of the toss got to choose.

Referees Mark Robinson and Darren Ball poised to toss the coin
Referees Mark Robinson and Darren Ball poised to toss the coin

This was a tournament with players in four 'leagues' of five proper NBA teams, where they play every other person in their league once on the linked NBA Fastbreak games.

Players compete in the NBA Challenge
Players compete in the NBA Challenge

In this instance, the top player in each league went through to the next round of play-offs.

They were:

James Watson   Steve Drysdale
vs   vs
Neil Fellender   Matt Vince

Neil and Steve both won, so they were in the final. But first, the 3rd place play-off was played between Matt Vince and James Watson, where Matt was victorious to earn himself his bronze medal and certificate.

Third place, Matt Vince
Third place, Matt Vince

So on to the final between Neil and Steve. It was a VERY close game with Neil coming out on top by just one point, so Steve had to settle for his silver medal and certificate...

Second place, Steve Drysdale
Second place, Steve Drysdale

...with Neil going home with the trophy, gold medal, certificate and the winners cash.

NBA Challenge winner, Neil Fellender
NBA Challenge winner, Neil Fellender

The second tournament was the Scottish Pinball Open, which has World Pinball Player Ranking points up for grabs and was free to enter.

This was held over two days, with qualifying on the Saturday and the play-offs and finals on Sunday afternoon. Qualifying was from 5pm until 8pm and played on four of the six available games, with the players deciding which four they would play.

The six games to choose from were:

  • Fortune
  • The Champion Pub
  • Pinbot
  • Indiana Jones
  • Judge Dredd
  • Star Wars

Sadly it was found during the tournament that Fortune couldn’t make it’s mind up how many balls it would give per game - sometimes it would give 3 balls, other times 4 or 5 balls, depending on how it felt - so it was removed from the scoring calculations and we were down to the 5 games for the qualifying calculations.

When the points for the 34 players were tallied-up, we were left with 8 semi-finalists:

Greg Mott
James Watson
Mathew Vince
Neil Fellender

Paul Owen
Carl Spiby
John Higgins
Colin Clunie

So there were just two locals from Scotland in the last 8.

On Sunday from 1pm, the following games were played for the semi-finals:

  • Black Rose
  • WWF Royal Rumble
  • Bram Stoker's Dracula

And we were left with a four player final on the Sunday consisting of – Carl Spiby, Greg Mott, James Watson and Paul Owen.

Greg Mott playing in the final of the Scottish Open 2012
Greg Mott playing in the final of the Scottish Open 2012

In a close-fought 5-ball final played on The Addams Family just after 2pm, Greg Mott managed to beat Paul Owen, who sadly had a terrible last ball, to leave Greg the Scottish Pinball Open Champion of 2012.

Scottish Open 2012 winner, Greg Mott is presented with his trophy
Scottish Open 2012 winner, Greg Mott is presented with his trophy
by the bekilted event organiser, John Bud

1st
2nd
3rd
4th
-
-
-
-
Greg Mott
Paul Owen
Carl Spiby
James Watson

There was also an award to the best female player, who was Sarah Jarrett.

Best female player, Sarah Jarrett
Best female player, Sarah Jarrett

It was also my birthday on the Sunday, when I was kindly given a cake and other goodies. : )

Let’s hope the event is on next year, as the Scottish guys 'n gals made us feel right at home. I am sure this event will only get bigger, and will hopefully be supported by more machines and people next year.

Cheers to all involved.

Many thanks to Chris for his article. In addition, we have a video taken at the venue and sent to us by John Higgins.

 

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