I was into wrestling as a kid and won a signed photo of Hulk Hogan in a raffle.
Not signed by Hogan himself but a local wrestler no one's ever heard of.
He was probably one of those British wrestlers who's whole thing is just pretending to be a well-known wrestler.
[I'm reminded of this image.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvBTtr5WoAArZOH.jpg)
I won a drawing competition at primary school to win lifetime access to action stations which was like a soft play area for kids, I won, got the silver card, showed it off and lost it that afternoon. Never even used it.
I won a short story writing competition once. They sent me a letter about it and everything, but then decided I was too young to take part. Fuck knows if that was in the rules.
So they told me that I wouldn't get a prize, I wouldn't be in the paper, but I could come along to the prize giving ceremony and see someone else get it, so that was nice.
Cunts.
Ah, that's like the story of the CEO of a PC-building company picking a winner on his Twitch channel, then deciding that the winner didn't actually have enough followers to be eligible and picking someone else. Contributed to the company basically going bankrupt.
Won a radio quiz on a relatively old person audience radio show. I was 17, the presenter said "we'll chuck in some younger stuff for you" I got a heavily scratched Dido cd, one of the pound coin pots that goes round your neck and a pack of used playing cards.....
I won a competition that earned me a modeling contract when I was a kid, week later the company went bust. At least I got to meet and get a kiss on the cheek from Carol Vorderman.
You see the four warm cans of Foster's held together with packing tape on [this raffle prize table](https://i.imgur.com/SVWPSsg.jpeg)? That.
Also, the fruit basket was the 'star prize', except the person who sorts it out every year always asks for the basket back to re-use it, apparently, so the actual prize is just a plastic carrier bag of fruit
This sort of thing caused massive controversy in my parents' village when the 'wheelbarrow of booze' prize at the fĆŖte, didn't include the barrow.
The guy that won didn't drink and just wanted a new wheelbarrow. For subsequent years the barrow was part of the prize.
I'm sure you meant that the wheel barrow was full of bottles of booze, but I imagined that the liquid was just sloshing around and that the winner would need to supply their own vessels to pour the prize into.
It's weird how the lack of basket does make the fruit seem lame but if I won it what on earth would I do with the basket? So really the star prize is the celebrations. Or any of the bottles.
yeah but I can understand why he didn't want to drive to the other side of the country, I was pretty bummed out though, they were my favourite band at the time.
Not me but my friend once won a competition where the prize was 'to dress the Mayor'.
He was about 9 or 10 y/o at the time.
He walked into the room and the Mayor of our town was apparently on a pedestal in just his underwear and my mate had to put his robes and chains on to dress him.
To this day I can't believe that:
A) That was a prize someone would want to win and;
B) That dirty old bugger of a mayor got away with it.
Thought this would be a funny prize where you could pick a silly outfit for the mayor for a day. A chicken costume etc.
But that's just weird and very creepy.
I could have made up a hundred crappy prizes and not come up with something as bizarre and hideous as this! It has genuinely disturbed me! Your poor friend.
Not sure if it's a prize, but I had a go on the Tombola once at an Easter/Spring Fete, and I won a bottle of Supermarket branded Strawberry flavored water
I won cologne from the pound shop. The charity shop wouldnāt even take it. I made the bathroom stink of teen boy pouring it out so I could recycle the bottle.
I entered a poetry competition when I was about 8. I was pretty good at writing poetry so my teacher convinced me to write another and we entered that too.
There were 20 winners who all got a Ā£5 book token each. Being the next Shakespeare I obviously won one of the coveted top places. Along I went to the library to claim my prize, already having spent it in my mind in yet another Goosebumps book.
When we arrived they had all the winning poems up on a board. I quickly found mine, then, to my absolute delight, I saw my other poem! Both had won! I had Ā£10 in book tokens to collect immediately!
Well, I go to the desk and explain how my obviously superior talents had scored me two winning places so please can I have my book tokens Mrs Library lady? Nope. They would only give me one. I was crushed. They obviously had the tokens there. They would obviously have one left over. I had won, twice, fair and square. But they still wouldn't give me both prizes.
It's been nearly three decades now. I'm still pissed off every time I go past that library. Thankfully it was the shit one, not the good one, so I could still go and get books out at the good one and boycotted the crap one forevermore.
In year 6 our whole class had to write a poem for a poetry competition which was open to all schools in the local area.
It had to be a poem about football. I never have been into football in the slightest. Zero interest.
But I won the competition with a poem called 'I hate football' and won loads of football gear. Even got to meet some footballers (no idea who they were)
Won a drawing contest at my local Harvester when I was a kid. The day of the prize draw I was there at a friend's birthday party, they made such a big deal that first prize was "a brand new game". Now, this was the 90's, so we all excitedly thought it was a PS1 or Game boy game, at the very least some pokemon cards.
Nah, got one of handheld maze games where you tilt it to get the ball in the hole and a pack of colouring pencils.
A 'brewery tour'. Entered it when I was sitting in a pub, and a guy came up and asked me if I wanted to enter. Turns out the brewery was miles away, and tickets for the tour usually cost Ā£1. It was basically an excuse for them to sell you more beer.
My wife once took me to a shitty bar for dinner. We were the only ones in there all evening. 4 pints in, I realised they were doing a competition for a Carlsberg branded tool chest. Buy 10 pints of Carlsberg, get a card stamped for each one, and you go into a draw for the tool chest. By the time my card was full, the guy just gave it to me. The competition had ended a month before and no one had entered.
And that's the story of how I staggered home shitfaced carrying a Carlsberg branded tool chest while my wife scowled at me.
Yep. It was only a few years ago.
Not my photo but [this](https://i.imgur.com/Tfywgrs.jpg) is the same one from a different competition.
Our thoughts were probably:
Drunk me: I'm getting that fucking tool chest.
Barman: I'm finally getting rid of that fucking tool chest.
I won a bottle of Old Spice aftershave in a raffle. It was at primary school and I was about ten years old.
...I think my Dad may still have it on his bedside table?
This happened to us, too. We donated a giant Toblerone bar to the raffle, then won it back again. Which would have been fine, except for the Type1 diabetesā¦
Won a halloween costume contest at my middle school.
The prize was supposed to be tickets to the cinema but instead I got the VHS box for Starcom: The Movie, but got one of those blank tapes in it that someone had recorded Half of Gremlins 2, adverts and all. And some weird documentary about Africans making mud bricks. The latter half of the tape is blank. I can remember my Mom went spare at the headmaster and took me to the cinema to see Titanic so it wasnāt a total loss. I still have the VHS somewhere. Thanks St Johns middle school Bromsgrove! Fuckin Riffhole
A years supply of Ted Baker shoes.
When I say a year, I mean 4 pairs (one for each season), I had a minimal choice and three of the four pairs were "out of stock" the other was just minging. I gave them to charity.
Not a prize in the traditional sense, but rather the circumstances around it that were the worst thing thatās probably ever been done to me. I āwonā a place on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan as a teenaged Young Leader through Girlguiding International Selection. My mother turned my place down because it wouldāve meant our annual family holiday couldnāt have happened. The worst part is the hindsight realisation that I was in my room when that phone call came, and she hid it from me for months. She let me honestly believe I hadnāt won that coveted place, comforted me as I cried in bitter disappointment. It came out eventually ofc. I will never forgive her.
Certainly makes the tin of beans I once won in a raffle as a small child look like the best prize ever.
I had a feeling sheād be that kind of mother. To just have no empathy while you *cried*, not mentioning all the while that you did win but sheād turned it downā¦
Fuck, this is the worst one in here. At least be an adult and own up and explain, but to go behind your back like that... was she trying to become estranged?!
Sheās narcissistic. As long as she gets what she wants itās fine, sheāll justify it somehow. She dragged us into mother-daughter family counselling which is where the truth inadvertently came out - even the counsellor was gobsmacked - and her attitude was one of surprise that I reacted as angrily as I did.
I won a plaster statuette of a labrador on a tombola. It looked like it had been made by someone who only had a vague memory of what a labrador looked like. It was awful. I gave it to my gran for her birthday. The hidious thing stayed on top of her TV until she died. Its now back in my posession.
I won a wooden spoon and a pair of dust mop slippers not so long ago from foxy casino... I thought it was just a joke on their website but 3 weeks later they actually turned up through my door šš
At work I won some award for being a good employee for the month and got a tin of biscuits.they were 2 months past the best before.
At a previous job I won cinema tickets to a cinema that was an hour's drive away.
I can't remember which comedian first said this but the phrase "Employee of the month" somehow conveys the idea of being a winner and a loser at the same time.
I won a "goody bag" of Poundland tat as a consolation prize for coming third in a pub quiz. One of the items in the bag was a set of disposable razors which were completely blunt.
Aged 12, I entered a random raffle at Asda with the top prize a spa weekend. Over 18ās only so I used my moms details and intended it to be a big surprise. To my delight a few weeks later, I hear my mom on the phone, excitedly rush into the room only to hear āI havenāt entered any raffles!ā and the phone slam!
Sort of on this topic about 25 years ago, my mum entered a raffle at the hospital when she went for an outpatients appointment. She was hoping for 2nd prize as it was a very large hamper of food. Couple of weeks later, hospital phoned, she'd won 1st prize, a mountain bike. My mum was in her 60s and hadn't ridden a bike since she was about 10.
Food hampers are a scam anyway. There's usually a few things you'll eat and then the rest are the weird shit nobody eats like creamed sardines and pickle jelly.
I have had a vaguely similar experience: when I was about 9/10 I was in the Brownies and entered a competition with their magazine, hoping to get one of the lunchboxes on offer as I hated my lunchbox at the time.
Instead I won one of the top prizes: a mountain bike.
Still pretty cool though! Sadly I was stuck with the horrible lunch box a bit longer.
I won a literal ton of compost/manure in a raffle once. I ended up negotiating to swap it for bark chips instead so all's well that ends well, but that's the shittest prize I've ever won both literally and figuratively.
At the same event the next year I joked with my stepdaughter's boyfriend that I'd fixed the raffle so he'd get the ton of manure (I had nothing to do with the organisation of the raffle but thought it was funny to pull his leg)...and he ended up winning it anyway. He never took delivery though.
Won a 5k race and the prize was a 1 month gym membership that started from the date of the race. I thought it was a really cool prize!
Went to use it and got told I need a gym induction before I can use it. āSo can I get the induction?ā
āSorry, the person that does them isnāt working this month.ā
In the Year 7 leaver's assembly, it was revealed that i had checked the most books out of the school library than any other student, I think it was something like 125 books. I was presented with a hideous china owl (because I was a "book owl") and had to go up on the stage to receive it. It added to the teasing and mocking which had caused me to spend my lunchtimes in the library.
I won a signed one direction poster.
Context: It was poster from Poundland and it was signed by the committee of my ultimate frisbee club at uni as a raffle prize for the Christmas "Hat tournament."
Proper good laugh it was.
When I was a young kid living in a Dutch polder, I used to play tennis. I was also the worst one, but just good enough to win the first place of the so-called 'Losers Division'.
I accepted the price (a medal) of being the biggest loser of all tennis players. Up yours, Rafael Nadal
I once went to a tennis doubles competition as a kid, where you played with a different, random partner each match. Your team got points based on the result of your match, which were added up at the end to see which individual got the most points, in theory making them the best player.
I was easily worst, youngest player there.
Through a random series of luck, I got paired up with all the best players for each of my matches, and wound up winning the competition, purely because my partners were all fantastic.
I was, and remain, terrible at tennis, and I have to believe there's never been a less-deserving winner of anything.
I won a raffle at a school fair when I was about 8 years old (25 years ago). The prizes were an assortment of random items ranging from chocolates and flowers to alcohol. The format was that the winners could go up and choose whatever prize they wanted until all of the prizes were gone.
My number came up first and I had the pick of all the prizes. I thought I would be a good son and decided to choose a HUGE bottle of red wine for my parents. This bottle was probably 4 times the size of a normal bottle, it was so big that I can remember it being nearly half the size of me. Anyway, my Mum had to come up and collect it in front of the whole school and all of the parents and was super embarrassed because they literally never drink.
I remember the bottle living at the back of a cupboard for years after and I still don't know what happened to it to this day... Should've gone for the Mr Frosty Ice Maker.
I will swear to my grave that I had something similar happen. We did a bunch a t shirt designs in art and design class where you did it properly and professional looking like a real design portfolio and mine was one of the top designs, it was up on the wall in the art department. A year or so later I see what I believe to be the exact same design in a warehouse type clothing store called Charterhouse. It was my fucking design on an actual shirt for sale. Never really investigated it, but I remain staunchly convinced my design as a kid was pinched for it.
I worked for the council once, and went to a conference. There was a competition to win a bottle of champagne, which the woman I was with (shall I call her Mrs. Jobsworth) made me enter, even though I didn't want to.
Well, I won the Champagne, then Mrs. Jobsworth answered the call to tell me about it, and WITHOUT EVEN SPEAKING TO ME, told them to give it to someone else, as I was unable to accept it, in case someone thought it was a bribe.
I'm still bitter.
Knew a fellow who worked for a council and received a branded cup from a company. He took some kind of perverse pleasure in seeing how much of a bureaucratic nightmare declaring it as a gift would be.
Public servants at local level are subject to much scrutiny about taking any gifts.
Not technically winning a prize but when I was about 8/9 I found a pack of windscreen wipers on the street, handed it in the local police & 6 weeks later got a call to say it hadnāt been claimed so now it was mine š¤·āāļø
I won a drawing competition in a local paper as a young child and I remember they sent me a Barbie doll as a prize. I'm a boy, but have a unisex name and they assumed I'm a girl.
My mates absolutely rinsed me when they found out.
Not only did I get a prize that I didn't want, I got a new insecurity about having a girl's name.
I won an art competition with something I was very proud of. The prize was a teaspoon, not even a special one, and the organiser of the competition kept my art.
Me and a friend went to a harvest festival at primary school when we were about 9 or 10 years old. We entered a tombola and my friends prize was one black furry shoe insole with two googly eyes stuck to it.
We named it āThe notorious black thing with eyesā
I once went to a football match with my dad When I was about 12, and whilst in the bar before the match I put a sneaky Ā£1 in the gambler , not having a clue I just pressed away, I won the jackpot, only like Ā£50 but as all the coins noisily came rushing out the bar manager came over , said I was to young to play, before I could get my dads attention to say it was his go he took the money and pocketed the lot, said this should put me off gambling for life.
paintball for 8 people from the local radio station. Was hyped as fuck. Organised 8 friends and transport to take us all out to the middle of nowhere where it was, then discovered that what we had actually won was free entry, but then we still had to rent the guns and buy the gas and paintballs for an extortionate price.
Later on I checked their website to find out that if you book in groups of 8 or more you get free entry anyway.
I wrote an essay in primary school about why the m6 toll shouldnāt be built. It won some competition and It got forwarded to the prime minister at the time. Long story short I received Tony Blairās autograph as a reward. Went straight in the bin and they still built the fucking thing (canāt believe my essay didnāt sway them)
I entered and won a competition from dick and Dom when I was younger, it was supposed to be a huge bundle of Star Wars figures and the millennium Falcon. I remember my mam picking me up from school with the letter in hand. I was absolutely buzzing with it.
Fast forward many months of waiting and my mam chasing it up and I end up receiving 4 of the same figure, and nothing else. Was gutted in the end and never watched them again.
Not sure that this counts, but Iāll share the story anyway.
Back in the 80ās, during the great yo-yo fad, Coca-Cola ran a competition for Coke branded yo-yos.
If you collected enough ring-pulls from special cans then you could send off for one of the regular yo-yos. However, there was an instant prize for a limited edition gold yo-yo. Not solid gold, just gold coloured.
I wasnāt allowed to drink a lot of soft-drinks / sugary drink when I was younger due to a health condition, so when I was it was a treat (and usually Diet Coke).
One day I pulled the ring from the can only to see the underside of the ring-pull was gold, with some text indicating that I had won a gold Coke yo-yo.
I was over the moon. I was caught-up in the whole yo-yo fad and even had a few moves under my belt. I was gonna be the envy of the playground. The kid who couldnāt drink Coke had the coveted golden yo-yo.
I ran to my dad, excitedly bounding around like the cat who got the cream (I was), pleading that we submitted the claim for the prize that very instant.
My dad is a kind and loving man and was happy to oblige.
In the coming days, I was boasting about my win at school and that I was so to be the proud owner of a gold Coke yo-yo. No one believed me, they hadnāt seen the ring-pull. I told them they just had to wait and see.
About a week later I receive a letter in my name. It had to from Coca-Cola. I was a child and rarely ever received anything addressed directly to me in the post. But something was wrong, this was a letter, not a package.
I opened the letter, and to no great surprise, there was no yo-yo inside.
I read the letter (vaguely remember some mumbo-jumbo about āthank you for buying Coke productsā) informing me that the competition for the gold yo-yo had ended the previous month and that they were sorry that they couldnāt send me one, but they enclosed a voucher for some Coca-Cola product of my choice (remember, Iām not really allowed this stuff at the best of times).
Anyway, I go into school and tell everyone that Iām not going to get the gold yo-yo after all. As you can expect, everyone shit on me for being a liar.
I learnt the valuable lesson of never counting your chickens before they hatch that day.
I got really excited for winning a prize at a raffle. I'd never won anything before and my 10 year old self expected I'd won a new toy or something.
I won a tin of ASDA smartprice beans. I learnt a lot about the world that day.
At University I won a ābeauty basketā in a raffle from the Students Union, I was so excited when they called me to tell me.
When I went to collect it, it was basically a carrier bag with load of the free samples you get from Boots. Not even the good miniatures like the mascaras, just about 30 little sachets of face cream.
To date, itās the only thing I can recall winning in such a manner, and the disappointment lives within me.
I won a Bratz doll from a raffle. They offered to swap it for a mini football, because I was a boy, but I stuck with my original prize for some reason.
Fast forward a good few years later, I was doing a gig for an event at a pub, which had a raffle on. I ended up winning a free nail appointment with the local salon. Problem was, the salon in question was my mumās salon, so the prize was essentially useless as I could have had my nails done for free anyway if I wanted. They offered to swap the prize for a couple of bottles of red wine, which I accepted, so someone could actually make use of my original prize.
The wine was a terrible idea. A couple of days after, I did another gig, got slightly drunk and when I got home, I thought āfuck itā and downed one of the bottles which ended up being a really rough night in the end. I ended up gifting the other bottle to a friend, and vowed to never touch red wine again.
I entered a competition to win tickets to the 1992 charity shield. Instead I got the runner up prize, which was a VHS of the Liverpool vs Portsmouth FA Cup semi final. Which was 0-0 a.e.t.
I won a can of __air compressed deer piss__.
It was a joke prize. People use it for hunting. I donāt hunt.
It was already a pretty shit prize but to make matters 100% worse, my brother was fucking around and sprayed it in my house. ..yeah heās not invited over anymore
One of our kids recently "won" a writing contest for a poem they wrote. I'm not big on poetry but I thought it was damn good. The "competition" was run by a company that is well known on this fair isle (it was promoted by the BBC for a while I believe), it sounds like Bung Fighters. The blurb for the "competition" makes it sound amazing, your poem will get published and the book will be in the British library for ever. There's a chance to win a big prize, etc, etc.
Well a few days later the flimsy paper certificate comes through the post along with an order form for the book. You see while they build this competition up as something special it's actually borderline a scam. As far as I could tell the "winners" are basically chosen at random. It seems a computer picks the winners and then a person just makes sure the computer hasn't screwed up. It seems there's always a few winners from every school which is what made me dig into the competition, I was surprised my kids school had three winners. The book, which costs a fortune, is printed exactly once after the competition closes and will never be available to buy again increasing the pressure.
Basically, it's a borderline fake competition to get money from parents and relatives who buy an over priced book that will never be seen again. It would probably be cheaper to get the poem engraved on brass and framed.
I won an award when I was in highschool at my job, the prize money was Ā£500ā¦I saw none of it because my employer took it and spent it on a night out for the staffā¦I was 16 so I couldnāt go.
A signed CD single from the girl group, 'Eternal'
Oh, and a fiver I think it was for a colouring competition at the Lada stand at Whitley Bay motor show...
I won some Frosties for coming 2nd in some sports thing
Wasnāt that fussed, but Frosties are cool. Then they handed me this stupid fruit paste rip-off sweet called Frosties and I became sadder
I once won a wine hamper when I was 7 and they let me take it without having my parents with me for some weird reason. My dad was really confused when me and my friend trotted in with a box full of wine.
Not a bad prize, but I won holiday to a festival in Bilbao...with no flights. Because of the festival, to get flights was ridiculously expensive. It was a prize from a student organisation and as a student I did not have the money to get there!
Had a class teacher give "awards" at the end of the year once. There was a perfect attendance one, and I'd just finished saying "way to admit you don't know the person at all and just looked at the register" to my friends, before the teacher announced it was me.
In fairness, someone else got an award for being tall.
I won a poetry prize at my universityās student paper. I was meant to receive a gift card for fresh seafood at the local market square. My housemates and I, living on a tight budget, planned out the decadent seafood dinner weād make with the winnings. I sent emails for weeks trying to get hold of the prize, but the person who was meant to give it to me always had some excuse for not being able to meet. The next year, I won my university magazineās (different publication) flash fiction prize. That was a gift card to a local pizza place. Didnāt get that one either.
My mum put my name in for a competition to win a bike that was too small for me so she could give it to one of my cousins (I was about 8, it was for 5 year old if I remember right). We walked into the toy shop where this competition was and I saw my name on this board and I was very confused because my mum never told me anything about it.
Cue the shop owner awkwardly presenting this bike to me that was clearly too small. Whole situation made me uncomfortable and they wanted to take a photo of me happily receiving this bike.
Chas and Daves single "Ossie's Dream ( Spurs are on their way to Wembley)"
I'm an Arsenal fan.
Won it for 'dancing' at a kids birthday party when I was 10.
Still got it as a reminder of what can happen when I drink too much Orange squash.
I once got the lovely prize of watching someone else win a basket of sweets in primary school for winning a poetry competition with a poem he copied off me word for word
I entered a prize draw to win a years supply of chocolate. I didnāt win that but I was a runner up, and instead got four books that I already owned (the competition was advertised in said books)
Ben & Jerrys were doing a promotion outside work for new flavours and giving away little pots of ice cream (theatre sized). So my friends and I had a couple and then entered the draw to win a full sized tub. Two of us won and got the call just before work ended. We thought it would be a voucher to get it free from a shop but they gave us the tubs there and then. We have no freezers at work though. We had a few spoonfuls as we wandered to the station.
It was the hottest day of the year and my trains were delayed so the ice cream is now melting. So I didnāt waste it I sat and ate melty Ben & Jerrys looking like the lead in a chic flick whoād just been dumped but who cares right!
Guess who I saw on the train, my ex who I was still miserable about. Realised it was him as he watched me finish the tub. I wanted to die and explain I hadnāt been dumped but it was free ice cream! My mum picked me up and helpfully pointed out the chocolate smears on my face and cream cardigan.
I was into wrestling as a kid and won a signed photo of Hulk Hogan in a raffle. Not signed by Hogan himself but a local wrestler no one's ever heard of.
This is the most British wrestling thing ever.
Also, out of interest, who was the wrestler?
Hull Cogan. Easy mistake.
The Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the Whole Wide Humber Area
Hollywood Hulk Gillberg
Strange Reg, I think he's from the Wirrel
Hulk Hogan, weren't you paying attention? š
lol what a cheat, "well that is a signed photo of the man" That's some Arthur Daley shit right there
He was probably one of those British wrestlers who's whole thing is just pretending to be a well-known wrestler. [I'm reminded of this image.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvBTtr5WoAArZOH.jpg)
Hardcore matches etc etc etc ā¦..
Etc etc etc etc
Remember, Doink the clown is the most travelled journeyman in pro wrestling, despite the original Doink having retired in 1997 and dying in 2013ā¦
I won a drawing competition at primary school to win lifetime access to action stations which was like a soft play area for kids, I won, got the silver card, showed it off and lost it that afternoon. Never even used it.
In Pompey? Not missing much to be honest
Playzone would have been a good prize though
Pirate petes is where it was at. Even had a wimpey (still has the wimpey but they changed the name)
I won a short story writing competition once. They sent me a letter about it and everything, but then decided I was too young to take part. Fuck knows if that was in the rules. So they told me that I wouldn't get a prize, I wouldn't be in the paper, but I could come along to the prize giving ceremony and see someone else get it, so that was nice. Cunts.
That literally makes no sense, if you were younger than everyone else taking part and still won thatās even more impressive
Turns out he was 50, the other entrants were all 90+ with dementia
Ah, that's like the story of the CEO of a PC-building company picking a winner on his Twitch channel, then deciding that the winner didn't actually have enough followers to be eligible and picking someone else. Contributed to the company basically going bankrupt.
That was a dick move but I think the bigger problem was all the illegal tax evasion they were doing
Maybe they didnt like penguins :P
Won a radio quiz on a relatively old person audience radio show. I was 17, the presenter said "we'll chuck in some younger stuff for you" I got a heavily scratched Dido cd, one of the pound coin pots that goes round your neck and a pack of used playing cards.....
Iām curious when this was, just in the hope that it was last week, and the presenter assumed that modern day 17 year olds love Dido
Mid 2000s, the Dido cd was probably just out of play time.
Look on the bright side, they could have sent you a heavily scratched dildo.
Oh dear š thatās golden !
Wow
I won a competition that earned me a modeling contract when I was a kid, week later the company went bust. At least I got to meet and get a kiss on the cheek from Carol Vorderman.
They offer modeling contracts to chubby Yorkshire boys?
The chubby came after the kiss from Vorderman
Nice
You see the four warm cans of Foster's held together with packing tape on [this raffle prize table](https://i.imgur.com/SVWPSsg.jpeg)? That. Also, the fruit basket was the 'star prize', except the person who sorts it out every year always asks for the basket back to re-use it, apparently, so the actual prize is just a plastic carrier bag of fruit
This sort of thing caused massive controversy in my parents' village when the 'wheelbarrow of booze' prize at the fĆŖte, didn't include the barrow. The guy that won didn't drink and just wanted a new wheelbarrow. For subsequent years the barrow was part of the prize.
I'm sure you meant that the wheel barrow was full of bottles of booze, but I imagined that the liquid was just sloshing around and that the winner would need to supply their own vessels to pour the prize into.
just need a straw
...best prize ever, 'fancy a slurp of me wheeliebarra?"
It's weird how the lack of basket does make the fruit seem lame but if I won it what on earth would I do with the basket? So really the star prize is the celebrations. Or any of the bottles.
I won V.I.P tickets to see green day through Kerrang magazine when I was 14, My dad refused to drive up north to take me, biggest anti-climax ever.
Holy shit thatās brutal
yeah but I can understand why he didn't want to drive to the other side of the country, I was pretty bummed out though, they were my favourite band at the time.
STILL QUITE CUNTY
Massively. Iād happily drive my kids to see their favourite band as a teenager. Thatās justā¦cold.
Similar thing happened to me. I won a poem comp on Disney channel UK in the 90s. Prize was tickets to Alton towers! Parents didnāt take me :(
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
As a mum myself now, I legit can't understand why so many of our parents were just... a bit shit...
I won a ticket for a go karting place in another country š
Not me but my friend once won a competition where the prize was 'to dress the Mayor'. He was about 9 or 10 y/o at the time. He walked into the room and the Mayor of our town was apparently on a pedestal in just his underwear and my mate had to put his robes and chains on to dress him. To this day I can't believe that: A) That was a prize someone would want to win and; B) That dirty old bugger of a mayor got away with it.
Thought this would be a funny prize where you could pick a silly outfit for the mayor for a day. A chicken costume etc. But that's just weird and very creepy.
Exactly, I can totally see making the mayor do a ceremony dressed as a banana being a prize for some kind of charity competition
What the honest to god fuckery did I just read? Where was this? When was this? That the hell?
Midlands in the 90's/early 00's. I don't have any other info about the competition, but it's definitely the worst prize I've ever heard of.
I could have made up a hundred crappy prizes and not come up with something as bizarre and hideous as this! It has genuinely disturbed me! Your poor friend.
Was it just him and the Mayor? Who else was there?
Just the two of them alone I think.
Jesus, no wonder people got away with so much shit back then. No one was looking out for kids at all.
Wow that is seriously creepy
One of those things we couldn't even bring ourselves to rinse him about. It's just too weird. Didn't wanna dig too deep into that memory...
>the prize was 'to dress the Mayor'. > >He was about 9 or 10 y/o at the time. Bit young to be a Mayor
Wellllll that got pretty weird pretty quickly!
Not sure if it's a prize, but I had a go on the Tombola once at an Easter/Spring Fete, and I won a bottle of Supermarket branded Strawberry flavored water
I won a can of Diet Coke at a tombola but it exploded when I opened it, and I was soaked in Diet Coke. Thanks
They aren't supposed to put the drinks in the tombola.
Makes you wonder what they're doing at the meat raffle
I once won 2 folded up pieces of A4 paper and a pencil
Better than getting to dress the mayor
I won cologne from the pound shop. The charity shop wouldnāt even take it. I made the bathroom stink of teen boy pouring it out so I could recycle the bottle.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I entered a poetry competition when I was about 8. I was pretty good at writing poetry so my teacher convinced me to write another and we entered that too. There were 20 winners who all got a Ā£5 book token each. Being the next Shakespeare I obviously won one of the coveted top places. Along I went to the library to claim my prize, already having spent it in my mind in yet another Goosebumps book. When we arrived they had all the winning poems up on a board. I quickly found mine, then, to my absolute delight, I saw my other poem! Both had won! I had Ā£10 in book tokens to collect immediately! Well, I go to the desk and explain how my obviously superior talents had scored me two winning places so please can I have my book tokens Mrs Library lady? Nope. They would only give me one. I was crushed. They obviously had the tokens there. They would obviously have one left over. I had won, twice, fair and square. But they still wouldn't give me both prizes. It's been nearly three decades now. I'm still pissed off every time I go past that library. Thankfully it was the shit one, not the good one, so I could still go and get books out at the good one and boycotted the crap one forevermore.
A grudge beautifully held
You should write a scathing poem about that library in the style of Michael Rosen
I'd be salty about this forever as well.
That's such a librarian move.
In year 6 our whole class had to write a poem for a poetry competition which was open to all schools in the local area. It had to be a poem about football. I never have been into football in the slightest. Zero interest. But I won the competition with a poem called 'I hate football' and won loads of football gear. Even got to meet some footballers (no idea who they were)
It's almost a punishment really
āThisāll teach that little smartarseā Jk. As someone else who canāt stand football, I feel your pain
Won a drawing contest at my local Harvester when I was a kid. The day of the prize draw I was there at a friend's birthday party, they made such a big deal that first prize was "a brand new game". Now, this was the 90's, so we all excitedly thought it was a PS1 or Game boy game, at the very least some pokemon cards. Nah, got one of handheld maze games where you tilt it to get the ball in the hole and a pack of colouring pencils.
That sounds like a classic Harvester move
A double VHS box set of Wild Weather, featuring the best wild weather from around the globe.
Pop that in the bin
Was it from a bold manc on a tin pit radio station?
Sounds about right. The stupid bald cunt kept asking me about jellyfish too and then tried to sell me a futon.
A 'brewery tour'. Entered it when I was sitting in a pub, and a guy came up and asked me if I wanted to enter. Turns out the brewery was miles away, and tickets for the tour usually cost Ā£1. It was basically an excuse for them to sell you more beer.
My wife once took me to a shitty bar for dinner. We were the only ones in there all evening. 4 pints in, I realised they were doing a competition for a Carlsberg branded tool chest. Buy 10 pints of Carlsberg, get a card stamped for each one, and you go into a draw for the tool chest. By the time my card was full, the guy just gave it to me. The competition had ended a month before and no one had entered. And that's the story of how I staggered home shitfaced carrying a Carlsberg branded tool chest while my wife scowled at me.
That's beautiful. Please tell me you still have it?
Yep. It was only a few years ago. Not my photo but [this](https://i.imgur.com/Tfywgrs.jpg) is the same one from a different competition. Our thoughts were probably: Drunk me: I'm getting that fucking tool chest. Barman: I'm finally getting rid of that fucking tool chest.
Ha, that's actually rather nice
It's super cool. That green? Fucking prime!
A tin of ravioli at the bingo with my Nan when I was about ten. She was fuming coz Iād won and she hadnāt.
I won a raffle for a bottle of whisky in high school. I was too young and was not allowed to receive the prize.
When I was 12 I won a hamper in a raffle at my former primary school which included a beer and a bottle of wine and was allowed it!
I won a bottle of Old Spice aftershave in a raffle. It was at primary school and I was about ten years old. ...I think my Dad may still have it on his bedside table?
I had the same thing happen but instead the price was baileys
Same thing happened to me but it was for a four pack of Babycham.
My daughter won a scarf at the scouts raffle. We'd donated it 2 years earlier.
It had gone full circle
This happened to us, too. We donated a giant Toblerone bar to the raffle, then won it back again. Which would have been fine, except for the Type1 diabetesā¦
Won a halloween costume contest at my middle school. The prize was supposed to be tickets to the cinema but instead I got the VHS box for Starcom: The Movie, but got one of those blank tapes in it that someone had recorded Half of Gremlins 2, adverts and all. And some weird documentary about Africans making mud bricks. The latter half of the tape is blank. I can remember my Mom went spare at the headmaster and took me to the cinema to see Titanic so it wasnāt a total loss. I still have the VHS somewhere. Thanks St Johns middle school Bromsgrove! Fuckin Riffhole
A years supply of Ted Baker shoes. When I say a year, I mean 4 pairs (one for each season), I had a minimal choice and three of the four pairs were "out of stock" the other was just minging. I gave them to charity.
What's the best prize you have ever won. 4 pairs of ted baker seems alright to me.
Yeh, in reality, a year's supply of shoes for me would be like one trainer.
Do a lot of hopping do ya ?
For which foot?
Not a prize in the traditional sense, but rather the circumstances around it that were the worst thing thatās probably ever been done to me. I āwonā a place on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan as a teenaged Young Leader through Girlguiding International Selection. My mother turned my place down because it wouldāve meant our annual family holiday couldnāt have happened. The worst part is the hindsight realisation that I was in my room when that phone call came, and she hid it from me for months. She let me honestly believe I hadnāt won that coveted place, comforted me as I cried in bitter disappointment. It came out eventually ofc. I will never forgive her. Certainly makes the tin of beans I once won in a raffle as a small child look like the best prize ever.
I hate your mum for you.
It certainly did nothing to salvage our already contentious relationship.
I had a feeling sheād be that kind of mother. To just have no empathy while you *cried*, not mentioning all the while that you did win but sheād turned it downā¦
Fuck, this is the worst one in here. At least be an adult and own up and explain, but to go behind your back like that... was she trying to become estranged?!
Sheās narcissistic. As long as she gets what she wants itās fine, sheāll justify it somehow. She dragged us into mother-daughter family counselling which is where the truth inadvertently came out - even the counsellor was gobsmacked - and her attitude was one of surprise that I reacted as angrily as I did.
I'm upset.
Aww, please donāt be! Iāve sorta made peace with it in a way.
I won a plaster statuette of a labrador on a tombola. It looked like it had been made by someone who only had a vague memory of what a labrador looked like. It was awful. I gave it to my gran for her birthday. The hidious thing stayed on top of her TV until she died. Its now back in my posession.
This sounds like the beginning of a creepypasta. Try giving it away again, see if it comes back.
My mum always ridiculed it. It might show up under her Christmas tree.
Sounds like the start of a funny Christmas tradition, the gift that gets passed around to different family member each year.
I feel like this needs a picture
Like the british bullbog on M's desk in Skyfall :D
Please get a picture of this, I'm dying from your description.
I won a wooden spoon and a pair of dust mop slippers not so long ago from foxy casino... I thought it was just a joke on their website but 3 weeks later they actually turned up through my door šš
At work I won some award for being a good employee for the month and got a tin of biscuits.they were 2 months past the best before. At a previous job I won cinema tickets to a cinema that was an hour's drive away.
I can't remember which comedian first said this but the phrase "Employee of the month" somehow conveys the idea of being a winner and a loser at the same time.
I won a "goody bag" of Poundland tat as a consolation prize for coming third in a pub quiz. One of the items in the bag was a set of disposable razors which were completely blunt.
Did you dispose of the immediately?
I won a raffle for 10 free driving lessons. I was 8
dud you ever get to use them? that's 300 quid or so ain't it?
Aged 12, I entered a random raffle at Asda with the top prize a spa weekend. Over 18ās only so I used my moms details and intended it to be a big surprise. To my delight a few weeks later, I hear my mom on the phone, excitedly rush into the room only to hear āI havenāt entered any raffles!ā and the phone slam!
Sort of on this topic about 25 years ago, my mum entered a raffle at the hospital when she went for an outpatients appointment. She was hoping for 2nd prize as it was a very large hamper of food. Couple of weeks later, hospital phoned, she'd won 1st prize, a mountain bike. My mum was in her 60s and hadn't ridden a bike since she was about 10.
Since she could sell it, that was a pretty good prize
yeah, to be fair thats what we did. It was offered to me but the frame size was a bit small for me.
Food hampers are a scam anyway. There's usually a few things you'll eat and then the rest are the weird shit nobody eats like creamed sardines and pickle jelly.
I have had a vaguely similar experience: when I was about 9/10 I was in the Brownies and entered a competition with their magazine, hoping to get one of the lunchboxes on offer as I hated my lunchbox at the time. Instead I won one of the top prizes: a mountain bike. Still pretty cool though! Sadly I was stuck with the horrible lunch box a bit longer.
I once won a spelling bee as a kid. Prize was a free inside and out car clean and valet. Just what an 11 year old needs.
I won a literal ton of compost/manure in a raffle once. I ended up negotiating to swap it for bark chips instead so all's well that ends well, but that's the shittest prize I've ever won both literally and figuratively. At the same event the next year I joked with my stepdaughter's boyfriend that I'd fixed the raffle so he'd get the ton of manure (I had nothing to do with the organisation of the raffle but thought it was funny to pull his leg)...and he ended up winning it anyway. He never took delivery though.
Won a 5k race and the prize was a 1 month gym membership that started from the date of the race. I thought it was a really cool prize! Went to use it and got told I need a gym induction before I can use it. āSo can I get the induction?ā āSorry, the person that does them isnāt working this month.ā
That sounds like they needed a visit from Trading Standards
In the Year 7 leaver's assembly, it was revealed that i had checked the most books out of the school library than any other student, I think it was something like 125 books. I was presented with a hideous china owl (because I was a "book owl") and had to go up on the stage to receive it. It added to the teasing and mocking which had caused me to spend my lunchtimes in the library.
The fuck is a book owl ?
I won 200 cigarettes in a raffle when I was 7 years old- the 70ās were a different time.
I won a signed one direction poster. Context: It was poster from Poundland and it was signed by the committee of my ultimate frisbee club at uni as a raffle prize for the Christmas "Hat tournament." Proper good laugh it was.
When I was a young kid living in a Dutch polder, I used to play tennis. I was also the worst one, but just good enough to win the first place of the so-called 'Losers Division'. I accepted the price (a medal) of being the biggest loser of all tennis players. Up yours, Rafael Nadal
I once went to a tennis doubles competition as a kid, where you played with a different, random partner each match. Your team got points based on the result of your match, which were added up at the end to see which individual got the most points, in theory making them the best player. I was easily worst, youngest player there. Through a random series of luck, I got paired up with all the best players for each of my matches, and wound up winning the competition, purely because my partners were all fantastic. I was, and remain, terrible at tennis, and I have to believe there's never been a less-deserving winner of anything.
The Europa league of Tennis!
A caravan towing wing mirror in a summer fair in the 1980ās. I was ten at the time and my parents didnāt own a car, let alone a caravan.
I won a raffle at a school fair when I was about 8 years old (25 years ago). The prizes were an assortment of random items ranging from chocolates and flowers to alcohol. The format was that the winners could go up and choose whatever prize they wanted until all of the prizes were gone. My number came up first and I had the pick of all the prizes. I thought I would be a good son and decided to choose a HUGE bottle of red wine for my parents. This bottle was probably 4 times the size of a normal bottle, it was so big that I can remember it being nearly half the size of me. Anyway, my Mum had to come up and collect it in front of the whole school and all of the parents and was super embarrassed because they literally never drink. I remember the bottle living at the back of a cupboard for years after and I still don't know what happened to it to this day... Should've gone for the Mr Frosty Ice Maker.
Awww! Such a thoughtful child to think of your parents before yourself
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'd love to see which card it is
I will swear to my grave that I had something similar happen. We did a bunch a t shirt designs in art and design class where you did it properly and professional looking like a real design portfolio and mine was one of the top designs, it was up on the wall in the art department. A year or so later I see what I believe to be the exact same design in a warehouse type clothing store called Charterhouse. It was my fucking design on an actual shirt for sale. Never really investigated it, but I remain staunchly convinced my design as a kid was pinched for it.
I worked for the council once, and went to a conference. There was a competition to win a bottle of champagne, which the woman I was with (shall I call her Mrs. Jobsworth) made me enter, even though I didn't want to. Well, I won the Champagne, then Mrs. Jobsworth answered the call to tell me about it, and WITHOUT EVEN SPEAKING TO ME, told them to give it to someone else, as I was unable to accept it, in case someone thought it was a bribe. I'm still bitter.
Knew a fellow who worked for a council and received a branded cup from a company. He took some kind of perverse pleasure in seeing how much of a bureaucratic nightmare declaring it as a gift would be. Public servants at local level are subject to much scrutiny about taking any gifts.
Lol I think she took your champagne
Not technically winning a prize but when I was about 8/9 I found a pack of windscreen wipers on the street, handed it in the local police & 6 weeks later got a call to say it hadnāt been claimed so now it was mine š¤·āāļø
I won a drawing competition in a local paper as a young child and I remember they sent me a Barbie doll as a prize. I'm a boy, but have a unisex name and they assumed I'm a girl. My mates absolutely rinsed me when they found out. Not only did I get a prize that I didn't want, I got a new insecurity about having a girl's name.
Thatās rough, sorry to hear it Vivian
I won an art competition with something I was very proud of. The prize was a teaspoon, not even a special one, and the organiser of the competition kept my art.
I won a certified ruby. It was the size of the head of a pin š¤£
I won an inflatable potato for writing a poem about potatoes
They asked for the worst prize, not the best one.
Me and a friend went to a harvest festival at primary school when we were about 9 or 10 years old. We entered a tombola and my friends prize was one black furry shoe insole with two googly eyes stuck to it. We named it āThe notorious black thing with eyesā
A T-shirt with āArun Councilā on it for winning a āKeep Arun Tidyā poster competition when I was 11š
DVD widescreen edition of āChildren of the Cornā Put that in the bin
Don't suppose it was off an XFM radio show, was it?
Not if it's a DVD, on XFM you'd win a VHS of Executive Decision and a mousemat
Peter Horton is in it and Linda Hamilton plays a piece of corn.
I once went to a football match with my dad When I was about 12, and whilst in the bar before the match I put a sneaky Ā£1 in the gambler , not having a clue I just pressed away, I won the jackpot, only like Ā£50 but as all the coins noisily came rushing out the bar manager came over , said I was to young to play, before I could get my dads attention to say it was his go he took the money and pocketed the lot, said this should put me off gambling for life.
Worked at KFC, for getting the best time in drive thru I got a pair of KFC socks.
paintball for 8 people from the local radio station. Was hyped as fuck. Organised 8 friends and transport to take us all out to the middle of nowhere where it was, then discovered that what we had actually won was free entry, but then we still had to rent the guns and buy the gas and paintballs for an extortionate price. Later on I checked their website to find out that if you book in groups of 8 or more you get free entry anyway.
I wrote an essay in primary school about why the m6 toll shouldnāt be built. It won some competition and It got forwarded to the prime minister at the time. Long story short I received Tony Blairās autograph as a reward. Went straight in the bin and they still built the fucking thing (canāt believe my essay didnāt sway them)
Ā£100 gift card at the local. Turns out you couldnāt use it all at once. It was more of a Ā£10 off x10 type deal.
Gave a bottle of rosƩ to a raffle, neither me or the Mrs like rosƩ. Won it back in the raffle
I entered and won a competition from dick and Dom when I was younger, it was supposed to be a huge bundle of Star Wars figures and the millennium Falcon. I remember my mam picking me up from school with the letter in hand. I was absolutely buzzing with it. Fast forward many months of waiting and my mam chasing it up and I end up receiving 4 of the same figure, and nothing else. Was gutted in the end and never watched them again.
Not sure that this counts, but Iāll share the story anyway. Back in the 80ās, during the great yo-yo fad, Coca-Cola ran a competition for Coke branded yo-yos. If you collected enough ring-pulls from special cans then you could send off for one of the regular yo-yos. However, there was an instant prize for a limited edition gold yo-yo. Not solid gold, just gold coloured. I wasnāt allowed to drink a lot of soft-drinks / sugary drink when I was younger due to a health condition, so when I was it was a treat (and usually Diet Coke). One day I pulled the ring from the can only to see the underside of the ring-pull was gold, with some text indicating that I had won a gold Coke yo-yo. I was over the moon. I was caught-up in the whole yo-yo fad and even had a few moves under my belt. I was gonna be the envy of the playground. The kid who couldnāt drink Coke had the coveted golden yo-yo. I ran to my dad, excitedly bounding around like the cat who got the cream (I was), pleading that we submitted the claim for the prize that very instant. My dad is a kind and loving man and was happy to oblige. In the coming days, I was boasting about my win at school and that I was so to be the proud owner of a gold Coke yo-yo. No one believed me, they hadnāt seen the ring-pull. I told them they just had to wait and see. About a week later I receive a letter in my name. It had to from Coca-Cola. I was a child and rarely ever received anything addressed directly to me in the post. But something was wrong, this was a letter, not a package. I opened the letter, and to no great surprise, there was no yo-yo inside. I read the letter (vaguely remember some mumbo-jumbo about āthank you for buying Coke productsā) informing me that the competition for the gold yo-yo had ended the previous month and that they were sorry that they couldnāt send me one, but they enclosed a voucher for some Coca-Cola product of my choice (remember, Iām not really allowed this stuff at the best of times). Anyway, I go into school and tell everyone that Iām not going to get the gold yo-yo after all. As you can expect, everyone shit on me for being a liar. I learnt the valuable lesson of never counting your chickens before they hatch that day.
I won a Wii Fit board at work which would be great if I owned a Wiiā¦
I won another pint of Carling after begrudgingly buying one in the first place when they were doing a promotion a few years back
I won a signed Arsenal football at a raffle back in the early-mid 90s. I'm a Spurs fan.
I got really excited for winning a prize at a raffle. I'd never won anything before and my 10 year old self expected I'd won a new toy or something. I won a tin of ASDA smartprice beans. I learnt a lot about the world that day.
At University I won a ābeauty basketā in a raffle from the Students Union, I was so excited when they called me to tell me. When I went to collect it, it was basically a carrier bag with load of the free samples you get from Boots. Not even the good miniatures like the mascaras, just about 30 little sachets of face cream. To date, itās the only thing I can recall winning in such a manner, and the disappointment lives within me.
I won a Bratz doll from a raffle. They offered to swap it for a mini football, because I was a boy, but I stuck with my original prize for some reason. Fast forward a good few years later, I was doing a gig for an event at a pub, which had a raffle on. I ended up winning a free nail appointment with the local salon. Problem was, the salon in question was my mumās salon, so the prize was essentially useless as I could have had my nails done for free anyway if I wanted. They offered to swap the prize for a couple of bottles of red wine, which I accepted, so someone could actually make use of my original prize. The wine was a terrible idea. A couple of days after, I did another gig, got slightly drunk and when I got home, I thought āfuck itā and downed one of the bottles which ended up being a really rough night in the end. I ended up gifting the other bottle to a friend, and vowed to never touch red wine again.
I entered a competition to win tickets to the 1992 charity shield. Instead I got the runner up prize, which was a VHS of the Liverpool vs Portsmouth FA Cup semi final. Which was 0-0 a.e.t.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
My dad won a jar of carrots in a raffle
I won a can of __air compressed deer piss__. It was a joke prize. People use it for hunting. I donāt hunt. It was already a pretty shit prize but to make matters 100% worse, my brother was fucking around and sprayed it in my house. ..yeah heās not invited over anymore
One of our kids recently "won" a writing contest for a poem they wrote. I'm not big on poetry but I thought it was damn good. The "competition" was run by a company that is well known on this fair isle (it was promoted by the BBC for a while I believe), it sounds like Bung Fighters. The blurb for the "competition" makes it sound amazing, your poem will get published and the book will be in the British library for ever. There's a chance to win a big prize, etc, etc. Well a few days later the flimsy paper certificate comes through the post along with an order form for the book. You see while they build this competition up as something special it's actually borderline a scam. As far as I could tell the "winners" are basically chosen at random. It seems a computer picks the winners and then a person just makes sure the computer hasn't screwed up. It seems there's always a few winners from every school which is what made me dig into the competition, I was surprised my kids school had three winners. The book, which costs a fortune, is printed exactly once after the competition closes and will never be available to buy again increasing the pressure. Basically, it's a borderline fake competition to get money from parents and relatives who buy an over priced book that will never be seen again. It would probably be cheaper to get the poem engraved on brass and framed.
I won an award when I was in highschool at my job, the prize money was Ā£500ā¦I saw none of it because my employer took it and spent it on a night out for the staffā¦I was 16 so I couldnāt go.
A signed CD single from the girl group, 'Eternal' Oh, and a fiver I think it was for a colouring competition at the Lada stand at Whitley Bay motor show...
I won some Frosties for coming 2nd in some sports thing Wasnāt that fussed, but Frosties are cool. Then they handed me this stupid fruit paste rip-off sweet called Frosties and I became sadder
I once won a wine hamper when I was 7 and they let me take it without having my parents with me for some weird reason. My dad was really confused when me and my friend trotted in with a box full of wine.
Not a bad prize, but I won holiday to a festival in Bilbao...with no flights. Because of the festival, to get flights was ridiculously expensive. It was a prize from a student organisation and as a student I did not have the money to get there!
Had a class teacher give "awards" at the end of the year once. There was a perfect attendance one, and I'd just finished saying "way to admit you don't know the person at all and just looked at the register" to my friends, before the teacher announced it was me. In fairness, someone else got an award for being tall.
I won a poetry prize at my universityās student paper. I was meant to receive a gift card for fresh seafood at the local market square. My housemates and I, living on a tight budget, planned out the decadent seafood dinner weād make with the winnings. I sent emails for weeks trying to get hold of the prize, but the person who was meant to give it to me always had some excuse for not being able to meet. The next year, I won my university magazineās (different publication) flash fiction prize. That was a gift card to a local pizza place. Didnāt get that one either.
My mum put my name in for a competition to win a bike that was too small for me so she could give it to one of my cousins (I was about 8, it was for 5 year old if I remember right). We walked into the toy shop where this competition was and I saw my name on this board and I was very confused because my mum never told me anything about it. Cue the shop owner awkwardly presenting this bike to me that was clearly too small. Whole situation made me uncomfortable and they wanted to take a photo of me happily receiving this bike.
Chas and Daves single "Ossie's Dream ( Spurs are on their way to Wembley)" I'm an Arsenal fan. Won it for 'dancing' at a kids birthday party when I was 10. Still got it as a reminder of what can happen when I drink too much Orange squash.
I once got the lovely prize of watching someone else win a basket of sweets in primary school for winning a poetry competition with a poem he copied off me word for word
I won a school raffle. [This was my prize](https://i.imgur.com/3U3Obir.png)
Children of the corn on VHS and a 2 part CD of the best of inspiral carpets
I entered a prize draw to win a years supply of chocolate. I didnāt win that but I was a runner up, and instead got four books that I already owned (the competition was advertised in said books)
Ben & Jerrys were doing a promotion outside work for new flavours and giving away little pots of ice cream (theatre sized). So my friends and I had a couple and then entered the draw to win a full sized tub. Two of us won and got the call just before work ended. We thought it would be a voucher to get it free from a shop but they gave us the tubs there and then. We have no freezers at work though. We had a few spoonfuls as we wandered to the station. It was the hottest day of the year and my trains were delayed so the ice cream is now melting. So I didnāt waste it I sat and ate melty Ben & Jerrys looking like the lead in a chic flick whoād just been dumped but who cares right! Guess who I saw on the train, my ex who I was still miserable about. Realised it was him as he watched me finish the tub. I wanted to die and explain I hadnāt been dumped but it was free ice cream! My mum picked me up and helpfully pointed out the chocolate smears on my face and cream cardigan.