Die-hard Pompey fan wins national competition for gamesroom and had award presented by childhood hero Alan Knight

Aaron Haggard from Gosport, has won the Best Games Room 2023 award in the Home Leisure Direct competition.

Transcript

00:00 Aaron, tell me what it was like having a Pompey legend present your award for winning best games

00:07 room. Yeah it was brilliant, obviously winning the award which was shocking in itself but for

00:12 him to be able to come and present the award was brilliant and the fact that it was someone that I

00:18 grew up watching when I fell in love with Pompey in the early 90s, the fact that it was Alan coming

00:23 around to give that award was quite fitting. You know the early 90s when I started following the

00:29 following the club and kind of going to the majority of my games, he was one of the players

00:34 that was there for a long time and has played a lot of games for the club and is still part of

00:38 the club so yeah that was great. Did you think you would win the competition? No, I thought I'd

00:44 have a good chance being able to get the Pompey contingent in and fans behind it, however as I

00:50 said before there were some really good games rooms on there and the other nine were fantastic

00:55 and were worthy winners in their own right. Obviously they were slightly different to mine

00:59 and mine was quite niche so I knew I had to kind of tap in on that but even when I got the call I

01:04 didn't expect for that to be a winning call, I thought it would just be kind of thank you very

01:09 much but you know you haven't been successful this time so to get that call and it be the winner call

01:14 was brilliant, yeah I was made up, I was really happy. And do you think you would have been able

01:19 to win it without the support from the Pompey family? Not a chance, no I don't, like I say you

01:25 know you're in the top 10 that's brilliant in itself so it's one of those you've got as you

01:31 know as good a chance as anyone once you're in that top 10 but I knew that I had to tap in on

01:36 what was right you know was my niche and that was certainly the fact that it was a Pompey

01:40 games room so I had to kind of get those fans and get them behind me which they did and obviously

01:47 they've helped and helped win it so yeah I don't think without them it would have won but

01:53 we will never know. Tell me how you've celebrated? Yeah so we've done a few bits over the last week

02:00 or so I've done a few different things so we got some drinking and some kegs on the bar and

02:06 instead of people kind of put into that what I've done is we've given the money to charity so we've

02:12 been raising money for Cancer Harbour Trust, a London marathon place for the running club that

02:17 I'm with so we put some money into a pot and we've managed to raise a good amount for that so that's

02:21 that's been nice so it was a kind of from my point of view as a thank you to those people for voting

02:26 so like I say the running club that I'm part of and my friends and family that have also voted so

02:31 it was my way of giving back and saying you know here's a couple of drinks on me but if you can

02:35 please donate to charity so that's been really good. I've earmarked some of the money to a

02:42 shirt that I would like one of the old 80s shirts that come up every now and then so if that comes

02:46 up I've got a little fund there so. Will that be displayed in here? Indeed yes it will I'm sure it

02:52 will yeah I'm just gonna find a bit of wool that's not taken up but I'm sure with a little bit of

02:58 moving around I'll be able to get it up somewhere. Well done. Brilliant thank you. So Alan tell me

03:03 what you think about the Games Room and winning the competition? Yeah no I mean it's fantastic

03:09 everything Portsmouth is here a few shirts that are obviously over my career are lined along here

03:15 as well a couple of goldie shirts that are tucked around the corner as well but no Aaron's done

03:21 fabulously well I mean it's everywhere literally everywhere ceiling walls and floor so a fantastic

03:29 effort and as I said I thought it was a local competition that Aaron had won I didn't realise

03:35 it was a national one so I mean no fantastic effort and something to be very very proud of.