When I was younger, I did two paper rounds every morning, which provided me with the then-massive weekly income of £9. I would be paid this on a Saturday and, if West Ham were playing away, would convert this into nine quids’ worth of enormous ten pence pieces and head towards an arcade in Bow for a morning of grubby entertainment. Our arcade was typical of many at the time, being a dark room with a line of games machines circling round like a Blade Runner version of Stonehenge, in the middle of which block sprite galactic battles would take place, under the twinkling gaze of kindly old gentlemen – or, as they prefer to be called, paedophiles – who were always happy to provide Fanta and crisps to thirsty space warriors, or, to once again use the correct term, jailbait.

There was a hierarchy among the games which was keenly observed. I myself was something of a whizz at Scramble and Out Run and that sit down Star Wars one that wasn’t as good as it thought it was but had a speech track which assured the just-killed player that the Force would be with them, always. Needless to say, this gave the Force considerably more longevity than £9 in ten pence pieces, and I can still identify the exact bit in Star Wars from where this bit of dialogue is taken. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing it here.

Top of the tree, however, was undoubtedly Defender. It had nine buttons. The sound effects were brilliant. It had an in-game radar so you could see what enemies were heading your way, although we cognoscenti considered that only a foolhardy pilot paid attention to this device, as it was more distraction than flying aid. We would exchange knowing glances through the Superkings mist as an amateur player panicked and deployed a smart bomb against a group of pods, which released clouds of swarmers when hit, necessitating the use of a second smart bomb to clear them. It’s a long way to 30,000 points and an extra life when you’re new to Defender, and if you’re chucking smart bombs around like confetti on the early screens you might as well hand your dog tags in right now, as you aren’t going to make it home.

There was one player, though, who always made it home. He was our very own Tommy, except that he wasn’t deaf, dumb or blind, and had no access to a pinball machine, or indeed ’50s coffee bar entertainment of any kind. He was known by his three letter hi-score table moniker, Yid. At one point, Yid topped every table in the arcade. The bloke was a force of nature. I’d rarely seen him until one day in 1983 when something extraordinary happened. Yid clocked Defender. I watched the magic moment when 999,975 went back to 0 from a vantage point atop a Galaxian machine, which was of course very much against the usual don’t-climb-on-stuff arcade policy. Yid had taken Defender to a place that the designers thought no human ever could. He had literally beaten the game. He had Defended everything.

From time to time, I wonder where he came from, and where he went. He really did have that Gandalf like quality about him. He was no more than 20, I suppose, and was probably at the Tech College. The ‘Yid’ moniker I assume came from association with Tottenham Hotspur, who had a very tidy firm at the time known as the Yids. It’s known as the Yid Army now, incidentally, having been rebranded in the mid ’90s, necessitating the changing of letterheads and email signatures. He certainly looked the part in sky blue Pringle jumper, tight Farahs and slip on shoes. I wonder if, like Tottenham, the early ’80s was the last time he was a force to be reckoned with at his chosen recreational activity. I also wonder if, over a round or two of Wii tennis, he ever tells his kids about the time he clocked Defender. I hope so, because then I won’t feel so silly telling mine.