and behind Door Number
14..............
It is the Winter of 1980 and a precocious three year old is sitting down to tea at the Kitchen table. Beside him is an abacus and a pen and notepad and a small computer is on the floor alongside.
A plate of Fish fingers, chips and beans is laid in front of him, and the toddler glances at it, dismissively. For now, his mother says nothing, watching her son writing notes, pushing balls in the abacus from one side to another whilst copying out a games programme onto his ZX spectrum with his right foot.
Eventually, the mother"s patience runs out and the familiar refrain is heard
"Leigh. Tea, now. You can do that after your bath"
"Awww Mum, I"m just working out the scoring system for the nursery school British Bulldog Team Challenge tomorrow. We selected the teams at first break today and I was appointed captain of the Blue team. With my random pick I chose Ben, and now I have to work out who chooses which path from the school block to the Monkey bars so as to maxmimise our points haul compared to the other four teams. I also need you to sew our team name badges onto our kit to make us look like a cohesive unit"
Leigh's long suffering mother looked at him. Outwardly a normal child, it was only at the age of 18 months when Leigh insisted that she adopted a different system for stacking the family ironing so as to minimise transfer time from board to pile that she thought she could have a problem on her hands.
Fast forward to 2010 and Leigh has not changed. His car boot is a veritable treasure chest of APAT paraphenalia. In he walks to the casino and via several trips the following emerge
1x Laptop
Laptop has six spreadsheets for the weekend"s event, photo software and sixteen email accounts active for last minute player communications.
3x boxes of APAT store merchandise. Sorted as to size, colour and item.
1x Printer. Bought at the WCOAP this August because DTD could not print out his spreadsheets fast enough
1x Pack of Haribo. He knows it will only last seventeen minutes once he puts it down next to me, but its part of his routine anyway.
From two hours before the start of an APAT competition until after it ends on a Sunday the Chipaccrual whirlwind is in operation. Updating, commentating, spread-sheeting, photographing, printing, sorting and liasing, all with incredible good humour and relentless organisation. He even puts up with the grumpy old git sat in updating corner alongside him, when Des shows up that is.
Then when he gets home, there is the APAT day job to do...the Online games to sort and the Satellites to arrange. There is Betfair to speak to, and Betfair to speak to again, only this time more slowly! All this too done with patience and considerable sang froid.
As measures of his immense contribution to the APAT forum alone, over 6,200 posts and 140 days spent online on here tell a tale.
Leigh is the nuts and bolts of APAT. His efficiency and dedication allows for what you, the players, see to appear seamless and professional. He also has a wicked sense of humour. As evidenced by deciding to leave 63 medals and cases at home for several months before reminding Des that he had them to send to members, at which point George Michael Trippier was more combustible than the asbestos in the roof of an old Grosvenor casino.
Leigh of course "played" the first three seasons of APAT, reaching the top 15 of National championships three times. He has appeared in forum challenges and national team events. All this despite being Welsh.
When Leigh got knocked out of APAT events, which was frequently, he was the main volunteer amongst the APAT army of contributors to a live update over a weekend and this extended to organising Online events as well as forum moderation through seasons 2 and 3.
When Season 4 was taking shape, with its scope and complexity leading to greater demands in managing APAT coinciding with calls on Des" time and with myself frequently having four or five live events in various stages of planning, Leigh was the natural choice to adopt a more formal role within APAT.
An accountant by profession (now there is a surprise), in his spare time Leigh and his partner Jen look after twenty seven rescue labradors at their home which consists of half of Hampshire.
The poor labradors may have been rescued, but I doubt they regard it as that, as each morning before work Leigh lines them up in age order for rollcall having already measured their precise food servings the night before and listed them on a spreadsheet.
Leigh's other hobbies include Manchester United, a natural choice as he has never been to Manchester except for APAT, F1, the Foo Fighters and staying up too late. No wonder he occasionally looks tired
As we near the end of Season four, and begin to think Season Five, APAT, Des, myself and all players and members owe Leigh, APAT stalwart to end all stalwarts, a debt of gratitude.
