The Rise of Video Rental Shops 83-85: New Competition

Video Shops

The second part of our journey back to the opening of our 1980’s video shop. The history of our video rental shop from 1983 to 1985 features new competition and a new partnership!

It’s Halloween in 1983, Uptown Girl was topping the music charts, the ZX Spectrum was recently released and business was on the up!

Video Venue had a few direct accounts with Guild Video, Brent Walker and Intervision at the time, which weren’t easy to get in the early days, most of the bigger labels required an account, and a guaranteed minimum spend. Out of reach to many independent video rental shops of the early 80s.

The Move to Castle Street in Stockport

The video rental shop had just moved premises to a bigger, purpose-built shop around the corner at 117 Castle Street, Edgeley. The Castle Street area of Edgeley, Stockport was bustling, full of shops and cafe’s, and had a huge footfall. The new premises were just around the corner from the original video shop.

The shop was situated opposite the chippy called The Friary, an absolute godsend for me as I could order my special “chips in a bag, ready to eat now” for a whopping 45p!

I ordered this so I could have full control over the vinegar pot, the bag would literally be dripping with vinegar! I used to get sent out of the video shop by my Uncle Mike for stinking the shop out!

We’d often venture down to the video rental shop either after school or at the weekends. When Stockport County were playing at home, we’d go to the ground and climb the big tree behind the Cheadle End to catch the game.

In the days before the scoreboard was put up, we’d have an executive view! The scoreboard kind of ruined it, covering up the near goal area a bit!

When we were all together we’d either go around the shops, or try and get a game of footy on the car park behind the chippy. It felt like a full-sized pitch back then, emulating our heroes of day such as Bryan Robson, Norman Whiteside, and if you were in goals? It had to be Gary Bailey!

The car-park had a height restriction frame for cars to drive under, this doubled as our football net! Jumpers for goalposts on steroids! We’d take our Adidas Tango football and play Heads and Volleys until dusk. Night time’s and Sundays were the best as it wasn’t filled with cars!

The Rise of Independent Video Rental Shops

We still did a lot of film leases outside the local area in Sale and Gorton. By mid to late May we had opened our second shop at 47 Constable Street, Gorton, Manchester. Competition had steadily increased around Stockport, and new local video shops were opening all over the place.

Within a few miles there were more than 10 video rental shops, Some had multiple shops too. Video 1000 (Marple and Edgeley), Video Box Office (Cheadle Heath), Grove Video Library (Hazel Grove), Eagle Video (Bramhall), Super Star (Hazel Grove and Cheadle) to name a few!

Introducing CHEC Video Club

Another rising video rental shop with a couple of stores was CHEC (Cheshire Home Entertainment Centre).They’d been around a while now.

The owner was a guy called Eric, he was well known in the video  and computer industry, my dad and Uncle Mike would often cross paths with him at Trade Shows and Video Warehouses such as VTES (Video Tape Exchange Service).

My dad and Uncle Mike used to trade and exchange a lot, that’s how they built their initial collection of films. They had also started renting  out computer games, and some classic titles had been released between 1983 and 1984 including Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, and Atic Atac!

Eric already had 2 video rental shops with a 3rd to open soon. He opened his first CHEC Video Club in July 1983, but just a few months later his first shop was raided during the video nasties scare. The video shop was raided again in 1984.

They met with Eric on multiple occasions and visited each others shops. I vaguely remember him having thin white hair, and I used to pester him to play Computer Scrabble on the Spectrum 48k! I couldn’t really spell, I just filled in random letters and got maximum points!

Eric was the master of presentation, his shops were kitted out with neon lights, backlit displays and immaculate video shop poster displays. Also, having a computer background gave him access to the best POS and Membership systems on the market. Before long, there was a partnership on the cards.

The CHEC Video Club Partnership in 1985

A partnership was struck between George, Mike and Eric, and Video Venue changed its name to CHEC Video Club in January 1985. A new signage system was installed with a new back-lit sign.

The new partnership put all of their skills and knowledge together and opened the new video rental shop in Woodley (Stockport). It didn’t take long for it to surpass everyone’s expectations.

The building was a former bank that still had a huge walk-in safe (hence the slogan: A Video Club You Can Bank On!). A great place to keep all the films and games secure… Until one day when the safe didn’t open and a Master Locksmiths had to be called out!

Over 2,500 Customers Within 6 Months

Within the first 6 months the store had over 2500 customers and was packed out with people eager to rent the latest blockbuster! They had plenty of choice as we had over 5000 films in stock, a huge amount for a video store.

Not to mention the computer games for every home computer of the time, C16, C64, ZX Spectrum, Vic 20 and Amstrad! The choice for entertainment seemed endless.

It looked like the partnership could do no wrong, expansion was soon the talking point until a video shop raid, a court case, and a falling out between the partners brought a sudden end to what looked like an unstoppable team.