SWAVESEY PINBALL WEEKEND

It’s the end of June, so that means we’re back in the small Cambridgeshire village of Swavesey for the annual Pinball Weekend. As is customary, the venue is the White Horse Inn on the village square.

The event is organised by local resident, Mark Squires, also known as the Dr. Pinball for the machine repairs and restorations he undertakes at his Pinball Surgery business, as well as for his appearances on the TV series Salvage Hunters: The Restorers.

This is certainly a small show, but intentionally so. The social aspect is of catching up with old friends is probably just as important as the pinball playing, although combining the two over a pint makes for a very relaxed vibe right across the show’s three days.

There’s also a large beer garden and covered seating area for those enjoying a rest between all the pinball action and for eating meals from the inn’s kitchen.

The other key aspect of the long weekend is raising money for the show’s nominated charity through a mix of direct donations and buying tickets for the famed raffle. This year the beneficiary was UKPIPS, the charity for raising awareness of, and improving the lives of those suffering with, Primary Immune Deficiency.

Posters featuring a QR code for donations were located throughout the building.

The pinball machines are set up in the inn’s tap room at the back of the building with the bulk of the games arriving throughout Friday.

Apart for two which are normal residents of the tap room, all the machines are brought to the show by private collectors. Nobody takes any compensation for their time or expense in transporting their games to Swavesey, while nearly everyone also contributes cash and/or items to the overflowing table of prizes for the traditional charity raffle.

The thirteen machines at this year’s event were:

With everyone in the back playing pinball, the front of the pub was pretty quiet.

Throughout the weekend, guests would add more and more items to the table of prizes for the raffle, or to the overflow box below. Meanwhile, Diane Bush and Vin Jauhal would always be ready to sell everyone plenty of raffle tickets at £5 for a strip of 5 tickets, with the draw taking place on Sunday afternoon.

The raffle is one traditional event at the Swavesey Pinball Weekend, but another there are several others. One is the Saturday evening group dinner, held in the inn’s dining room. With no other pubs or restaurants in the village, it’s a popular option for show attendees in need of sustenance.

As usual, once all the dining had ended, a friendly poker game took place in the same area. There was only time for a single game before the inn closed for the night around midnight.

On Sunday, eating a meal from the restaurant was swapped to burgers from a barbecue, which was set up in the beer garden.

Having a more casual barbecue rather than formal dining fitted in better with another of the traditional Swavesey event, Sunday’s UK Pinball Cup tournament run by Martin Ayub.

The UK Pinball Cup is deliberately designed to be as inclusive and unpressurised as possible. It is not an IFPA-sanctioned event in order to maximise both the fun and charitable elements, with competitors encouraged to either donate through the charity collection tin or to purchase raffle tickets in lieu of any entry or sanctioning fees.

Sign-up began at midday and continued until 1pm. Thirty six players put their name down on the sign-up sheet and collected their numbered player badge.

In the first round, twelve groups of three players were drawn at random using large numbered balls. Each group then played three four-player games on three different machines, with the winner of each game getting 9 points, the second place 5 points, the third place 2 points and no points for coming last.

When all three games had been played, the player with the lowest number of points dropped out, while the other three continued to the next round. Everyone who dropped out could help themselves to Kellogg’s cereal bars as consolation.

The second round followed the same format as the first, except there were eight groups of three this time. Again, the lowest scorer dropped out to leave the final sixteen.

Before the tournament moved on to the next round, the draw for the prize raffle took place. As winning numbers were called by Diane, the lucky ticket holders could walk up, show their number and select any prize they wanted.

With so many prizes available and so many tickets sold, it took around twenty minutes to call out all the winning numbers and finally clear the prize table.

For the UK Pinball Cup play-offs it was sudden-death, as players were paired-up and played a single game on a randomly-drawn machine. The winner continued; the loser dropped out. That process continued, reducing the sixteen qualifiers to eight quarter-finalists, then four semi-finalists, and finally the two finalists.

The final came down to a single game of Total Nuclear Annihilation contested by Matt Vince and Stan Simpson. The adjacent Road Kings was used for a 3rd/4th place play-off between Mark Squires and Nick Marshall. Both machines were chosen to ensure neither player had played them so far in the play-offs.

Matt began the final. He built a slight lead through the first ball with a score of 95K, but trailed to Stan after ball two by 391K to 414K.

On ball three Matt edged ahead with an end-of-game score of 525K. It was a slight lead, but proved enough when Stan drained his third ball early with a game total of 453K.

The 3rd place play-off was won by Mark, with Nick in fourth.

There were trophies and vouchers for £100, £50 and £25 of parts and accessories from Retro Arcade Specialists for the top three, while the fourth place prize was a trophy and a whole box of cereal bars. The winner also got to take possession of the perpetual Nigel Hill Memorial Trophy for a year. Trophies and prizes were presented by Tournament Director and Pinball News Editor, Martin Ayub.

Here are the final results of the UK Pinball Cup 2023:

The end of the tournament was also the end of events at the Swavesey Pinball Weekend 2023. Most games were soon broken down and packed away for their journey home, while those machines remaining could continue to be played.

Although the exact amount raised for UKPIPS is still being confirmed by the charity, it looks as though it will be another record-breaking year. Over £1,600 ($2,045) was raised through raffle sales, cash donations and on-line donations, which will be added to other donations made directly to the charity. We’ll update this report as soon as we have the official total.

Whatever the final figure, it was certainly another hugely successful three days. Friendships were rekindled, plans made to meet again later in the year, games – both classic and brand new – were enjoyed throughout, and everyone had a great time. Plus, the weather held up with warm and (mostly) dry summer conditions out in the beautiful Cambridgeshire countryside.

Definitely a thoroughly relaxing and uplifting way to spend a weekend.

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