Post LOCKDOWN Operator Raid!

[jase38]

As lockdown restrictions
started to lift, we decided to go on another HoliRaid. I was in talks with this particular Op before
the lockdown, and it was great to finally pay him a visit.

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Our base was Skipsea Sands
Holiday Park in East Yorkshire. My
children had hardly left the house for weeks, so it was a nice change of
scenery for them. As we drove through
the site to our caravan, I spied an old abandoned arcade by the cliff
edge. [/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Green Lane, a road which ran
along the coast is no more due to erosion of the soft clay coast line. We wondered if the arcade was hastily
abandoned and if anything was left inside.
As much as I wanted to go and explore, I’d have to save that adventure
for another day![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The site however did have an
arcade. It was the usual modern arcade,
mostly redemption games, but there were a few modern games. We enjoyed a couple of credits on Sega Rally
3 DLX. Admittedly it’s not my favourite
entry in the series, but I’ve warmed to it over the years. It’s not one you see very often these days,
and I like that the classic tracks are selectable.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The next day it was up bright
and early for the Raid![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]On the faded sign outside you
can just make out ‘Suppliers of….. Video Games.’ We had arrived![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Upon entering the building, I
spied Crazy Taxi, Virtua Cop 3 and some pinball tables.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The arcade machines looked in
really good condition. The Virtua Cop 3
Upright cab is not one you see very often.
The Op mentioned that he still uses these for events, weddings etc.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]I then went up to the first
floor. There was quite a mixture of
stuff here. Pinball tables and play
fields, pool table balls and spares, old juke boxes, records and CD’s.[/font]











[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]However most exciting for me
was the shelfs full of PCB’s![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The boards had sat on the
shelf for twenty years, and sadly all the cabs they were pulled from were
scrapped. The cabs used to be sited in
pubs.[/font]

[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The test rig. Note the boards below. [/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The Op pretty much left me to
my own devices, and I started checking through and identifying the boards. More on this later.[/font]



[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]I then ventured into the
basement. [/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]This was a bit of an
Aladdin’s cave, featuring various arcade machines, juke boxes, pinball tables
and quiz machines.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The Op told me that back in
the day he was buying Space Invader cabs new for £995. After one week they had paid for themselves,
and it was clear profit.[/font]



[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Monitors stashed below the
stairs.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]I spent most of my time there
sorting through the PCB’s, putting the ones I was interested in to one side,
which was about ninety percent! The
games ranged from the early eighties to mid-nineties. The quality ratio was very, very high, and it
was pretty much just a few football and golf games I left behind. Konami GX061 aka Golfing Greats I’m looking
at you! I’ve got nothing against Golfing
Greats. It’s not a bad game, and I’ve got
one in my collection. However it’s the
one game you can guarantee to find multiples of on Raids. I don’t recall seeing it that often back in
the day, but this could just be because it didn’t interest me. I imagine it may have appealed to older
audiences in pubs. [/font]

[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Amongst the pile I found a
board labelled ‘Nemsis.’ Sounds like a dodgy bootleg![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Later that evening in the
caravan, I unwrapped the board and was amazed to find the mintiest mint Nemesis
board. This is up there with my best Raid
pick ups and is definitely a keeper.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]A Data East board had me
intrigued. It was labelled ‘Strange
Football,’ and I was on the fence about taking it. I’m really glad I did as it turned out to be
Nitro Ball, an amazing looking shooter, reminiscent of Smash TV, but in a
vertical orientation. I’d never heard of
this game before. [/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]This version of Commando is
another oddity I picked up. The ROMs are
labelled SP, and it turns out the game is Space Invasion. This is a special version of the game made
specifically for the West German market.
It’s based on the World version and replaces the human soldiers with
aliens. I never knew this existed. Making new discoveries like this and finding
new games is definitely one of the awesome aspects of Raids.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]Other highlights include 1942,
Circus Charlie, Ghosts’N Goblins, Shinobi. Slap Fight, Space Invaders DX, The
Newzealand Story, Thunder Dragon and Trojan.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]A lot of boards had dipswitch
settings sheets attached to them. During
the rummage we came across bundles of board and monitor manuals as well as some
art.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]As I was sorting through the
boards, I had some company. It wasn’t
the first time I’ve had some dog drama on a Raid![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The boards were sold as
untested and prices reflected this.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]I don’t think he was very
happy with me taking the boards away![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]The boot fully loaded, plus a
few additions I’d picked up at the awesome Sore Thumbs video game shop in
York. The car passenger seat was stacked
up with boards as well, and once again I had to make the journey home by train. It definitely pays to have an understanding
wife when going on Raids![/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]I said bye to the family and
waited for the bus to Bridlington. I had
some time in hand and so ventured down to the abandoned arcade. [/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]On the side of the building facing
the sea, boards had been placed against the window from inside. I could just about see above the boards. Also ‘Pizza coming soon’ had been inscribed
onto the window from the inside, and I peered through the letters.[/font]

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[font="Times New Roman, Times, serif"]To my disappointment the
building was pretty much empty, except for a Coca-Cola fridge and a Walls ice
cream chest. These places fascinate
me. I wondered what machines the arcade
had and tried to imagine the cacophony of electronic beeps and the sounds of
people having fun. I had another look
round the building, and as I took some pictures I saw large rain drops appear
on my phone screen. Moments in time and
rain, reminds me of the ending of a certain sci-fi classic. The rain became heavier, but fortunately I
could see my bus pulling up at the stop.
It was time to say good bye to this old arcade and Skipsea Sands and
head home.[/font]

 

[channel27]

Another great writeup, Jase

The dog does not look impressed!

 

[Ronnie Dent]

Nice raid, were the pinballs for sale?

 

[thermal_treasure]

Fascinating reading and some awesome finds there. Arcade stuff aside, it's terrifying what the sea can do to the coast in some parts of the UK

 

[qjuk]

Nice raid there Jase and another fantastic haul of boards.

Also, nice to see a Demolition Man pinball in one of the photos. A table I used to play a lot BITD.

 

[Shinydaz]

Great raid, worth the effort hunting these places down.

 

[SIE]

Some great finds there. That Nemesis must be worth a few quid. These kinda places must be rare now.

That Sega Rally 3 DLX is huge. Don't think I have seen that before.

 

[stevebm1]

great raid and glad to see an op still in business.

 

[_Matt_]

Fantastic stuff yet again! Must be so exciting going through all those pcbs especially when there were some really good games amongst them.

 

[muddymusic]

Another great find, nice write up as usual and looks like the legwork you clearly put in has brought in the rewards again

 

[griffo83x]

Wow you got some nice stuff

 

[richmal]

My dad and step mum had a caravan at Skipsea Sands in my mid teenage years(I’m 45 now

)
I’m sure the boarded up arcade you showed was called Charlie’s Arcade.
It was ok.It had quite a few old games even back then which would have been late 80’s/early 90’s.I think it had a Championship sprint as I can remember a cab with multiple steering wheels,a phoenix cab,Mappy and quite a few more.Probably about 30 cabs in there.
There’s another arcade which it looks like you went into with the Sega rally 3 cabs on the main site.
That had a play scene 33 cab which had Final Fight in for all the years I went i’m sure.They had about 25 jamma cabs in there.Rygar,Gemini wing,Nemesis,Pac-Man,PAC land,Turtles 4 players which was replaced by Hat trick hero(probably the first one) and then Mortal Kombat.I would get £2 a night and would change it straight away for 10p’s which would last the night.

 

[mysticmonk]

Niiiice

 

[LawmanAUT]

Nice raid, nice games!

Reminds me when I visited an former operator here in austria - we also made a deal about the pcb`s: bootlegs vs original and man, he had so many...

LawmanAUT2020-09-01 17:44:21

 

[richmal]

My dad and step mum had a caravan at Skipsea Sands in my mid teenage years(I’m 45 now

)
I’m sure the boarded up arcade you showed was called Charlie’s Arcade.
It was ok.It had quite a few old games even back then which would have been late 80’s/early 90’s.I think it had a Championship sprint as I can remember a cab with multiple steering wheels,a phoenix cab,Mappy and quite a few more.Probably about 30 cabs in there.
There’s another arcade which it looks like you went into with the Sega rally 3 cabs on the main site.
That had a play scene 33 cab which had Final Fight in for all the years I went i’m sure.They had about 25 jamma cabs in there.Rygar,Gemini wing,Nemesis,Pac-Man,PAC land,Turtles 4 players which was replaced by Hat trick hero(probably the first one) and then Mortal Kombat.I would get £2 a night and would change it straight away for 10p’s which would last the night.

Was the other arcade with the Sega Rally 3 cabs called Henry’s? I’m sure that’s what it was called back in the day.

 

[neo-geo-mvs]

Nice, nice!!!

 

[Steveylou]

Another great write-up Jase and fantastic pics

At first I questioned who would store pool balls like that. Thinking about it though it makes total sense

 

[Bensonrad]

Wow, another great haul there, a Star Trek Pinball too. Not a lot of dust either, so looks like things are well looked after even if they have sat unused for many years.

I know what you mean by visiting places that look run down/derelict, I love that sort of stuff, a glimpse into the past.

 

[jase38]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys.

My dad and step mum had a caravan at Skipsea Sands in my mid teenage years(I’m 45 now

)
I’m sure the boarded up arcade you showed was called Charlie’s Arcade.
It was ok.It had quite a few old games even back then which would have been late 80’s/early 90’s.I think it had a Championship sprint as I can remember a cab with multiple steering wheels,a phoenix cab,Mappy and quite a few more.Probably about 30 cabs in there.
There’s another arcade which it looks like you went into with the Sega rally 3 cabs on the main site.
That had a play scene 33 cab which had Final Fight in for all the years I went i’m sure.They had about 25 jamma cabs in there.Rygar,Gemini wing,Nemesis,Pac-Man,PAC land,Turtles 4 players which was replaced by Hat trick hero(probably the first one) and then Mortal Kombat.I would get £2 a night and would change it straight away for 10p’s which would last the night.

Wow it's so cool you went to this arcade, thanks for sharing your memories. I tried to find some info about it's history, and I remember someone commenting that it used to be called Charlie's. It sounds like they had a nice selection of games.

Yes the other arcade is on the main site and is now part of the Park Resorts site. Again it sounds like they had a great selection of titles. It's a shame all the modern holiday parks have pretty much the same games now and hidden gems are few and far between. Haha £2 lasting the evening, they were the days!

 

[Alpha1]

£2 for the evening. Imagine that now!