As a child, one of the pleasures each day on the annual family holiday to the Isle Of Wight were the visits to the amusement arcades on the seafront.

Whatever change our parents had accumulated from the trips to a castle, or a steam train or the ice creams on the beach and after the obligatory game of crazy golf, then it became ours. Coins were split evenly and off we wandered through the wonder of flashing lights, sounds and movement.

Rows of machine after machine all seemingly saying “Feed Me” and promising tenfold returns.

Spending was a hard decision, especially when you haven’t yet reached double figures age wise. The money burned a hole in your pockets but wasting it early was the ultimate crime.

Very early on you realise the one arm bandit with two lemons is unlikely to find a third. You understand in an elementary way there is no skill attached and that pulling the handle hard and fast doesn’t give you a better chance of winning. Power isn’t’ everything.

So you look for an opportunity, one that requires an eye, one that you might just be good at despite your tender years. Skill.

For me it came down to one of two gambles. The penny rolls where you angle up a slider and shoot a penny against a back wall before it rolls back and falls onto a moving conveyor with tram lines, between the lines and you won three pence, six or occasionally twelve.

It was a good game as you nudged slightly the shoot to better your chances with each coin, but….…but sometimes the coin was in the lines and the machine didn’t pay. It was crooked. You couldn’t trust it and as a child brought up to trust in adults I quickly gave up on this one only returning to it after watching others and seeing if their experience was fair.

My favourites though were the sliders. You put your money into a slot at the top, carefully waiting until the slider below had almost disappeared into the machine. Then you let go. The coin dropped through a series of pins and landed on the first slide. As the slide came in your coin pushed others hopefully off onto the bottom plate where another slider then pushed the money into a winning tray.

Occasionally an additional prize would be put on the bottom plate to encourage punters to play. They were my favourites until that one day in Ryde.

It had been raining, rows of cream excursion buses stood forlornly waiting for passengers on the esplanade; we sheltered in the back room of The King Lud, where our extended family had chosen.

It was a pub that had little going for it then back in the sixties and I doubt if much has changed. After much sulking, stropping and general misbehaviour that kids are renowned for when things aren’t going their way, Robert and I are dispatched to the arcade next door with instructions to be back when the money runs out.

Imagine my joy when I notice a slider with a clear plastic box right on the edge and ready to drop.

Inside the box, folded tightly, held by a rubber band, is a ten shilling note.

I have to play.

The machine has three slots right at the top. The prize is in the middle. I drop a coin in the centre slot, it shoots across the pins to the right and never even makes the slider. I try again, a similar result.

This never normally happens they usually fall fairly straight.

Watching the sliders move I decide to go for the left hand side, the coin drops it makes the slider, but nothing falls to the base plate. Another attempt, the coin shots off to the side. I try the right slot, the result is the same.

Fingering my last coin, I go back to what should work. The centre, I close my eyes, wish, open my eyes and let go.

I stand back and watch as others seek the prize, the big result only inches away, just one little touch or nudge or more accurate placement of the coin. They come and go, the ten shilling note unmoved.

I felt so elated at the thought of as easy win and so let down by not being able to win.

Exactly the same way as I felt yesterday at Pride Park when Derby County missed chance after chance to take all three points against Burnley!

It would be easy to criticise those who missed and those whose mistakes perhaps contributed to the goals.

Even the manager for bringing off a centre forward after he’s put our best crosser of the ball onto the pitch, or for playing a centre half upfront when a centre forward was on the bench.

Easy yes, but not right!

Yesterday we deserved a win, we created chances and we failed to take them.

Today is not a day to blame.

Photo: Action Images

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