Men's boyish spirits come alive at toy store's adult evenings

By Guengoer Oeztuerker Jul 15, 2010, 10:07 GMT

Hanover - Men really just want to play. It's something that a toy store in Hanover, Germany understands and caters to. A Carrera track, a football table and a remote-control helicopter help full-grown men be kids again.

Juergen Pralle bends over the football table, his thumb and middle finger clasped around a small blue figure.

He concentrates on his opponent's goal, lifts his index finger and taps on the figure's head, which causes it to kick a little black and white ball. He scores and it's 1-0 for 64-year-old Pralle, whose opponent is Wolf-Dieter Kaune, age 50.

They are playing on the first floor of a toy store in Hanover where shortly after closing time such competition begins on a regular basis.

'Eight, seven, six, five,' says referee Klaus Netzel, counting down the remaining seconds before half-time. The two players change sides and play another seven-and-a-half minutes before Pralle smashes the second goal into the net and wins the game 2-0.

'I feel it transports me a little bit back to my childhood. You have to develop some ambition, otherwise it's no fun,' said Pralle after the game.

He and Kaune are just two of about 40 men who are at the toy store playing various games, including model car racing and billiards. The multi-level store sets the games up between its shelves. Altogether there are 11 stations where men can throw, drive, kick and gamble.

The manager of the store, Heinz Lehmann, came up with the idea of the men's evenings.

'A lot of men have come into the store with their children and said they would like to spend a night here playing the games,' said Lehmann, who organizes the men's evenings as often as possible. The average age of the attendees is somewhere between 30 and 60. On a recent evening Philipp Pardigal was one of the youngest. The 22-year- old was on the ground floor playing with a small remote-control helicopter.

'You have to keep the aircraft in the air as long as possible,' he said. He kept the helicopter flying for almost two minutes, setting the bar fairly high for his grownup playmates. His excitement is written on his face.

'I always wanted to be locked in a toy store,' he said with a laugh. He has his girlfriend to thank for arranging his outing in the dream world of boys.

A few metres away three men are racing toy Carreras on a 7-metre-long, fully equipped track. A computer shows whose car has done the most laps. One of the men says he enjoys it because he once had a Carrera track, but it didn't have a computer.

The three men watch their cars race for seven minutes, biting their lips and holding their hands in front of their mouths. The winner has done 151 laps. But the fun ends just after midnight when the play stations shut down and the men have to return to their adult lives.