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