Midlands Pinball League, UK.
by Norman Hayes
We’ve been playing pinball for a few years now, mostly at home and whenever we happen to stumble across a machine out in the wild. But despite being invited to tournaments countless times, we’d never actually taken the plunge.
To be honest, we always assumed tournaments would be too competitive for us. We enjoyed playing pinball, but didn’t necessarily see ourselves as pinball players in that sense.
That all changed when we met Jim from JDL Pinball and his daughter Kate. They convinced us to give our local Midlands league here in the UK a go. In June, we headed to Warwickshire for our very first tournament.
We were instantly hooked.
The people, the atmosphere and, of course, the incredible mix of pinball machines made it such a brilliant experience. We got to play some EMs, electro-mechanical machines, that we probably would never have chosen to play otherwise. Honestly, they were machines we probably wouldn’t have thought we’d enjoy.
But put those games into a competitive environment and something completely changes.
Suddenly, these machines came alive.
Kate and her husband Richard, both outstanding players, were there along with some familiar faces and plenty of new people to meet. Being able to watch genuinely great players up close was an experience in itself. It was almost like seeing pinball for the very first time all over again. Watching how they approached a game, found shots and adapted to each machine completely changed the way we looked at playing.
That first tournament really marked a turning point for us.
Pinball had been bubbling away in the background for years, but we’d say this year has been the real beginning of our love for not just the game itself, but the culture and community that surrounds it.
