So you wanna be the very best?

When your friend tells you he’s entering a Pokémon tournament the only appropriate response is to go there to be his cheerleaders – well, after a half hour of convincing that it isn’t an elaborate ruse to steal your kidney. So with this in mind a few friends and I descended upon Manchester for one of the strangest weekends of my life: the UK & Ireland Pokémon Nationals.

While the two of my friends who were competing had to rush and get a taxi to the event to make the registration time (Pokémon don’t wait for no one) the rest of us took a leisurely bus ride to Event City, next to the gigantic Trafford Centre. The outside of the event was thoroughly disappointing; I was expecting a large red carpet, fire breathers, and limousines dropping off the rock stars of the Pokémon world (they exist, more on that later). Instead there was absolutely no sign that there was any kind of event going on, my earlier fears about my kidney were now growing. Luckily it turned out closed and empty was the vibe they were going for, and we found the entrance hidden around the back and we walked into one of the strangest rooms I have ever been in.

I’ve been in changing rooms after sports matches in the middle of summer, but I have never experienced a wall of body odour like this before. Thankfully it only seemed to be present right by the entrance, or (to be more precise) we just adjusted to it after the first few minutes. This was also our first introduction to the world of Pokémon celebrities as we saw ‘Foodking’, a man dressed in full Pokémon regalia with a medal from a previous tournament around his neck and a crowd of fans. The un-initiated among us were enjoying the surreal nature of this, until our friend competing warned us not to “under-estimate him” and explained his fame. This was another point I couldn’t believe, but a quick YouTube search proved that he was kind of a big deal.

Having been suitably schooled in my celebrity knowledge I decided to take the opportunity to find out how to play the Pokémon card game, the tournament for which had already kicked off. Like everyone else born in the early 90’s I obviously had an extensive Pokémon card collection, which I was always promised was going to be super valuable someday. It’s lies like this that set us up for the adult world.

Now I’m sure there will be some of you reading this that know entirely how the card game works, and could explain it to me in minutes. However during the half hour I spent watching I could honestly not tell you if they were playing Pokémon or summoning the dark lord Cthulhu.

It was the most confusing thing I have ever witnessed, and over the same weekend UKIP won a major election. Even the cards are so different; the shittiest of cards nowadays looks so much cooler than the shiny Charizard your best mate had. There were dice, little beads and, for the pro players, special table mats. Presumably this was to stop one’s pristine cards coming into contact with the table, or to intimidate your opponent with your Poké-badassery. I had intended to challenge someone to a friendly game, but I quickly realised I may as well go buy a copy of NF Stovold’s Mornington Crescent: Rules and Origins for all the sense it would make.

One of the most surprising things I was already noticing however was the diversity of the competitors at the event. In the video game competition there were three different age categories, which I assume was similar to the trading card competition. I was fully expecting the swathes of 20-somethings, and the disappointed parents sitting in the corner wishing their child had taken up football, but what I was not expecting to see were the much older players. I walked past one game between two men old enough to be my grandfather, both of who were wearing hats in the shape of Pokémon. I couldn’t even tell you which ones as they were from the latest set, and I struggle accepting the existence of more than the original 151.

After our observation we decided to set up camp in the disappointed parents’ area of the room and wait for our friends matches to begin. Waiting was the key aspect of the day, as we spent 4 hours until their matches were even about to start. Finally in the early afternoon we followed them over to the tournament area with anticipation of witnessing our first actual Pokémon battle. Both of them won their first match, by default. It turns out the 4 hour wait was too much for some people and the lure of the nearby Trafford Centre too strong. While this was a good outcome for us it was also rather disappointing. After a bit more of a wait the second round began, and with it I finally got to see what I’d travelled 200 miles for.

It turns out that Pokémon is really not much of a spectator sport, as my friends were right in the middle of a row, and standing behind them to watch was apparently frowned upon. However from what I could establish a Pokémon battle is much like your first time; it was over far too quickly and at least one person left incredibly disappointed. Both of my friends had won though, and we decided that it was an appropriate occasion to head to the Trafford Centre for celebratory drinks and food. This rather overran and led to one of our friends being disqualified for missing all of his matches, but upon our return we learnt that our friend who had stayed behind had won 3 games and lost 2 leaving him with a 5-2 win to loss ratio. To qualify for the second day he needed to have at least 6 wins, and he had one game left.

His final match was against a German guy who had travelled for 12 hours to make it to Manchester, who had also won 5 of his matches. This was it, winner takes all. Inspired by our location we gave Sir Alex Ferguson worthy motivational speeches and stood menacingly behind our friend as his opponent arrived. We were quickly moved away behind the ‘invisible line’ by tournament organisers, but our point had been well and truly made. We were here to win.

Apparently we’re the David Moyes of the Pokémon world, as our friend crashed out from the tournament with a routine loss to the dedicated man opposite him. This was all too much for us, and we had to retreat to the safety of Wetherspoons and reflect on possibly the weirdest experience of our lives so far.