Tom Burnett

on a Leek version of Monopoly

I’M SURE some people are spending their free time in a constructive way during this lockdown. For the most part I have not.

Aside from collecting as many different beers from local breweries and telling myself I’m going to make a start on the big list of books I planned to read, I’ve also been spending a lot of time playing one-player board games – my two personal favourites being Eldritch Horror and Blackstone Fortress (which isn’t really a board game, but still).

Maybe it’s the cabin fever setting in, but for one reason or another I found myself wondering if Leek had ever featured in any board games.

I can now conclusively say, after about two minutes of investigation, it definitely appears in at least one. As a space on the board in Brass: Birmingham, a game about shipping goods around the West Midlands during the Industrial Revolution.

It would be hard to argue that Leek was neglected in this regard – most market towns are probably seriously underrepresented in board games – but it got me wondering what a Leek-based Monopoly board would look like.

A quick search on Amazon reveals versions including Liverpool, Manchester and Leicestershire - and I feel the Queen of the Moorlands is at least as deserving (there doesn’t seem to be a Staffordshire one, and while I remember hearing about students at Keele University calling for a Keele edition around 12 years ago I don’t think anything came of it).

At the moment we’d struggle a bit filling the slots for the railway stations. Leek Bus Station would be one, and eventually we should get a heritage railway station down at Barnfields, but we’d still be two short. We could always have markets (indoor, outdoor, trestle and Sunday Supplement?).

We’d probably struggle for utilities as well. The Leekbrook works might be a passable substitute for the waterworks but I can’t see there being much demand for a game that lets you simulate the experiencing of owning that mast on the Mount.

The Chance and Community Chest cards could be very thematic as well - and that’s almost certainly where you’d shoehorn in the obligatory roundabout reference that any such game would require.

I’m not going to get into which streets would be Old Kent Road and which would be Mayfair – that’s a house-price related minefield that I’m not having my name on (people can debate online).

A more diplomatic solution, which wouldn’t result in a row about the relative locations of Wallbridge and Haregate on the board, would probably be to have businesses.

For instance, we’ve got enough pubs that you could sort them by area – although it works well for any business (as long as you got their permission for them to be featured).

I’m not sure what you’d have for pieces. Iconic structures perhaps?

The Nicholson Institute would be one, St Edward’s Church, the Buttercross – at a push the Smithfield Centre? (Not the Monument though, that’d be the cover art surely?

Don’t worry, I’m not planning to make a Monopoly game for Leek I can’t recall ever even finishing a game of it, let alone making my own – but I’d be interested to see one.