The only award I've ever received in my long and often painfully ordinary existence. 1977 Pinball Champion of Top Ryde from the old Ryde Youth Center. Oh, to be a fourteen year old street urchin again.
Years later a couple of mates and I still had a raging debate about which machine I'd actually won on. I maintained it was the old Ace High machine while the other guys swore it was the Kiss machine. I won twenty dollars cash in hand and Nick Ravenscroft, John Woods, and the Dwyer boys - Jesus, all the heavies from the four corners of Greater Ryde - bought a slab of beer and we went down to the Ryde primary school grounds and got hammered that night after the contest. Those guys were notorious for loving a good punch up and I feared they were just going to beat the shit out of me and bury the body somewhere under one of the school buildings because I'd whipped their arses on the only thing I was good at.
Oddly enough I'd only gone down there that night to watch Baa Baa Black Sheep on a colour telly because my Ma wouldn't end up getting one until maybe late 1978. Somehow I got roped into the contest because someone dropped out. Maybe in fear of their lives.
Look back in anger.
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