'That prize sparked a passion': How a YEP win 26 years ago turned into a flourishing Pokémon business

More than two decades on, that boy, Spencer Cambridge, is now one of the UK’s leading Pokémon card streamers on TikTok - and the childhood dream has grown into a thriving, community-focused business.

Spencer, now in his thirties and still based in Leeds, vividly remembers the lengths he and his father went to in order to win the prize.

They spent pocket money collecting the special tokens from the YEP and “put all our money on that one thing,” he recalled. Computers were “crazy expensive” for his family at the time, and when they were told they had won, the reaction was one of disbelief.

“It was just, ‘No way we’ve actually got a computer,’” he told the YEP. “We just couldn’t believe it.”

As a child, Spencer spent the weekends trawling car boot sales with his dad, hunting for packs and singles. The Pokémon craze faded after a few years, but he held onto his original cards.

During the COVID lockdown, with time at home and a renewed wave of nostalgia sending the price of the trading cards soaring, he pulled the collection back out and started buying again.

Around the same time, TikTok was beginning to take off. Spencer spotted an opportunity to combine his hobby and the new platform. What started as a part-time side hustle around his regular job turned into nightly live broadcasts.

On his channel, Spens PokeStop, he hosts what are known as “rip and ship” streams, where viewers buy sealed packs during a live show. Spencer opens them on camera, and the cards are then sent out in the post.

He now has almost 12,000 followers on TikTok and says individual streams have drawn traffic of up to 8,000 viewers. His supply network has expanded from local shops to multiple wholesalers across the UK and even contacts in Japan. He also buys entire collections from other collectors.

Spencer describes his TikTok channel as a “family, wholesome community space” where regulars return as much for the chat as the cards. For some, it offers a way to connect with people when they struggle with social situations in person.

“It’s like an online community that gives people access to a safe space,” he explained. “It’s no fun just sitting at home opening on your own – whereas when you join my live stream, you’ve got loads of people in there, you make friends, you can purchase your cards and have them opened for you.”

That sense of community took on new importance when his father, who had encouraged his collecting from the start and even built his streaming display at home, fell ill with cancer. Even when he was very unwell, his dad would lie in bed sending likes to the livestream, Spencer recalls.

When he died in November 2024, he says the online community they had helped create “got me through it”, checking in on him and offering support at a time when he “didn’t know where I’d be otherwise”.

Now, he’s looking to take his business offline as well as online, with plans for a brick-and-mortar community hub in Leeds in the near future. He also donates thousands of surplus cards - known in the community as “bulk” - to charity projects such as Future Trainers Club in Grimsby, which helps children access the game when families are unable to afford the cards themselves.

For Spencer, it all ties back to winning that computer in a Yorkshire Evening Post competition almost three decades ago.

“Sometimes the things you love as a kid feel a bit geeky or unrealistic,” he said. “But you never know - in 20 or 30 years, that might be the thing that becomes your job.”