MCFCinUSA
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 14 Dec 2008
- Messages
- 5,299
- Team supported
- City since 1977
- a blast from the past!
ehehe
(a few years ago I was asked to contribute a 1980s Manchester story by the editor of one of our local publications, so I sent this to her from my student days, and would like anyone who knows what I'm talking about to please update on this story - what is the current deal with Ho's Bakery, is it still around, are things still happening above it? - thank you)
>>
One of my craziest memories of the time was a night I was in the PlayPen – a nightclub where Tuesday night was Nurses’ Night, which they printed pink promotional cards for. I met this gregarious hairdresser and a bunch of girls in there who invited me after the club was closing to go with them to their city centre casino.
Once inside a fistful of casino chips was dropped into my hand and I was told to go enjoy myself on the roulette wheel or whatever I fancied. My reply – so typical of my youth, was that house games were no good as the odds were always against you and I gave the chips back. “Backgammon’s my game” I said. I was told to stay put whilst a backgammon player was found.
Sure enough they had backgammon boards in the casino but it was the middle of the morning and the casino was winding down to close within the hour. A southern Asian gentleman approached me and asked if I’d like to play him - but across the road in a place above Ho’s Bakery in Chinatown! I was told I’d need £300, which I took from an ATM. I’d been playing and studying backgammon since I was 13, and figured this was the price I’d pay to find out how good (or bad) I was.
As the casino closed several dozen shadows of the night converged outside, and huddled en masse drifted across the street and up some dilapidated stairs to an illicit gambling den that looked like something out of a Paul Newman film.
They say when a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the money gets the experience, and the man with experience gets the money – and this was one of those occasions.
My opponent was a gambler but he didn’t know backgammon.
As we were settling after each game it wasn’t long before I was pulling out all his £50 pound notes from my pockets trying to make change, instead of the tens and twenties I’d originally come with.
Conscious that I was considerably ‘well-heeled’ from nearly four hours play with notes stuffed in every pocket - but not knowing just how much, I made reference to the fact I had to attend lectures that morning and excused myself into the early morning sunlight.
I walked down Oxford Road to Whitty Park to shower, get changed, and head back to the Reynolds building. I’d won several thousand pounds and had been invited back to the casino to play in their weekly backgammon tournament.
Later that week I called my best friend Michael, an inveterate gambler who I’d locked horns with since we were kids over chess, backgammon and later poker, and related my strange story to him. I asked if he wanted to chaperone me back to the casino the next week for a bit of fun. We both got knocked out in our first or second games, and the player who beat me knew how to play.
My friend from the previous week was there, and sought me out. He made an aggressive show saying he’d got several thousand more to lose to me (his exact words!) above Ho’s Bakery, but at this point I wasn’t interested in becoming a teenage hustler and I found Michael and we lost no time in making ourselves scarce.
<<
does anyone know if Ho's Bakery, or rather what's just above it, is still being used in this fashion?
I don't think the PlayPen is still around, but are Manchester's gamblers still congregating in the shadows??
ehehe
ehehe
(a few years ago I was asked to contribute a 1980s Manchester story by the editor of one of our local publications, so I sent this to her from my student days, and would like anyone who knows what I'm talking about to please update on this story - what is the current deal with Ho's Bakery, is it still around, are things still happening above it? - thank you)
>>
One of my craziest memories of the time was a night I was in the PlayPen – a nightclub where Tuesday night was Nurses’ Night, which they printed pink promotional cards for. I met this gregarious hairdresser and a bunch of girls in there who invited me after the club was closing to go with them to their city centre casino.
Once inside a fistful of casino chips was dropped into my hand and I was told to go enjoy myself on the roulette wheel or whatever I fancied. My reply – so typical of my youth, was that house games were no good as the odds were always against you and I gave the chips back. “Backgammon’s my game” I said. I was told to stay put whilst a backgammon player was found.
Sure enough they had backgammon boards in the casino but it was the middle of the morning and the casino was winding down to close within the hour. A southern Asian gentleman approached me and asked if I’d like to play him - but across the road in a place above Ho’s Bakery in Chinatown! I was told I’d need £300, which I took from an ATM. I’d been playing and studying backgammon since I was 13, and figured this was the price I’d pay to find out how good (or bad) I was.
As the casino closed several dozen shadows of the night converged outside, and huddled en masse drifted across the street and up some dilapidated stairs to an illicit gambling den that looked like something out of a Paul Newman film.
They say when a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with the money gets the experience, and the man with experience gets the money – and this was one of those occasions.
My opponent was a gambler but he didn’t know backgammon.
As we were settling after each game it wasn’t long before I was pulling out all his £50 pound notes from my pockets trying to make change, instead of the tens and twenties I’d originally come with.
Conscious that I was considerably ‘well-heeled’ from nearly four hours play with notes stuffed in every pocket - but not knowing just how much, I made reference to the fact I had to attend lectures that morning and excused myself into the early morning sunlight.
I walked down Oxford Road to Whitty Park to shower, get changed, and head back to the Reynolds building. I’d won several thousand pounds and had been invited back to the casino to play in their weekly backgammon tournament.
Later that week I called my best friend Michael, an inveterate gambler who I’d locked horns with since we were kids over chess, backgammon and later poker, and related my strange story to him. I asked if he wanted to chaperone me back to the casino the next week for a bit of fun. We both got knocked out in our first or second games, and the player who beat me knew how to play.
My friend from the previous week was there, and sought me out. He made an aggressive show saying he’d got several thousand more to lose to me (his exact words!) above Ho’s Bakery, but at this point I wasn’t interested in becoming a teenage hustler and I found Michael and we lost no time in making ourselves scarce.
<<
does anyone know if Ho's Bakery, or rather what's just above it, is still being used in this fashion?
I don't think the PlayPen is still around, but are Manchester's gamblers still congregating in the shadows??
ehehe