grecian wrote:I'd place Blackpool second only to Great Yarmouth on my list of Depressing British Places.
The most depressing place I've played machines in would have to be Middlesbrough, although I went there to watch the Toffees rather than specifically to play the machines. In any case Middlesbrough would win the vote for most depressing place based on virtually any criteria. So my vote would have to go to ... Filey - just along the coast from Scarborough but resembling nothing more than The Land That Time Forgot. If there is a more depressing place than out-of-season Filey I have yet to visit it but I'm sure you'll all have your own suggestions.
As for the best place, York is just a lovely city in general, it has lots of pubs close together and in the days when virtually all of them had a machine there really was no finer place to while away a day which ended with pockets jangling.
if you want a real shithole may i suggest sunny gainsborough or rougely near tamworth ,
or if you fancy getting really depressed, and need an excuse to slit your wrists at the seaside, might i suggest mablethorp mid february ,,,, for those of you thinking of suicide and need the extra push :P
just had a look at mablethorpe's wiki and it does look pitably modest in what it has to offer:
two supermarkets run by lidl and the coop. a cinema called loewen and an animal sanctuary with a couple of seals. in the general spirit of despair, whichever councillor wrote it has seen fit to describe a "small" fairground and reassures us that there are three banks too. even their marathon is described as "small". looks like the sort of place i'd be quite pleased to run 26 miles away from.
but my vote still goes to slough, come friendly bombs etc. if that is too hackneyed i'll choose luton; another thoroughly joyless place.
Although I've not been there for years I doubt it has changed too much- Morecambe in peak season was pretty grim and in the winter really was a barren wilderness.
For me, as I said on the other thread, Great Yarmouth (although I have to say I've rarely gone off the beaten track in search of machines). Wife and I passed through at my insistence on an otherwise very pleasant East Anglian jaunt - a horribly jaded sea-front, filled with depressingly impoverished people trying to enjoy a "holiday", and just away from the seafront street after street filled with vacant or near-vacant industrial units. Only stuck around long enough to play one machine which I managed to find in what passed for a pub on the seafront! One other town on that holiday which struck me as pretty grim was Fakenham, although not nearly in the Great Yarmouth league it must be said.
Best places to visit: I've only been twice but would agree with QM's assertion that Newcastle is a top place to play SWPs. I remember visiting in about 1999/2000 - when I was a *much* weaker player than I am now, and making hundreds of quid over a few days (although found it harsher on a revisit in 2005 - maybe QM had visited just beforehand!) I've always had a soft spot for Manchester since a couple of profitable visits there back in the late nineties, although suspect it's perhaps less good than it was. Having studied there I retain a great fondness for SWPing in Oxford, even though it's never exactly been the easiest town to bag cash.
I also remember his fleeting appearance as a landlord in an episode (or two) of Dad's Army...
Crap towns: Dartford has to be 'my local pits'. The general crumbiness of a lot of the pubs, the lack of anything decent to play (AWP and SWP) and the wierdness of a lot of the population. Is it just me, or do people of a similar 'nature' congregate in certain towns? I suffered the place for 3 years for work purposes, but now try and detour it on my way to other venues of interes...
"And do you ever contradict yourself, Minister?" "Well, yes and no..."
A member of this board told me recently in person that Gillingham was a horror show from the SWPs angle so maybe it's a North Kent thing?! Seriously, I suspect that a lot of these towns are poor, working class towns with few chain pubs and therefore few machines - SWPs are really something that need disposable income so I guess if that's not about then neither will SWPs be!
I always used to visit Shrewsbury for a good 100 profit
in the days of iceberg and Jurrasic Pork, so that would have to be
a contender in my favourite places to slot, as well as York, as you can always
go round undetected in the summer season with the vast tourist trade.
The worst place for me would have to be Nottingham, not for the lack of pubs mind
its a rough city with some grumpy slotters who get the hump when you
step on 'their manor'
Strangely, Dartford has a 'Spoons, a Smith and Jones and a Litten Tree. But the regulars make them none too pleasant...
Having only ever travelled through Gillingham, on my way to the south coast, I can only really say that from what I saw, it certainly didn't appear to be a thriving town...
"And do you ever contradict yourself, Minister?" "Well, yes and no..."
To be fair Middlesbrough is grim but Paisley can't be far behind.
Try Hartlepool if you want to get really hardcore! Hull's awful too as is Wigan.
My faves have been:
Islington High Street (way back in 04) was the easiest way to loads of cash without breaking a sweat.
Edinburgh and Leeds were and are still pretty spot on. Things are changing though as has been documented - less and less machines.
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