SOUTHFIELD Road in Nailsea is a typical North Somerset residential street.

But listen closely outside one house and the sounds emanating from within point to its owner's unusual hobby.

Crouched behind a machine in the living room, with his trigger fingers resting on the buttons left and right, Eddie Mole practises his chosen sport which has seen him climb to be one of the leading players in the UK.

We have all played pinball in bars and clubs, but few have taken it to Eddie's level.

Since what he admits has come close to being an addiction started in 1997, Eddie has owned more than 120 games. The machine currently in his living room, Theatre of Magic, is one of his all-time favourites, and some of his other favourites are squeezed into his small garage.

Eddie buys the games second-hand and then sells them on, normally when he completes them. A new game costs up to £4,000, but the ones that Eddie buys are normally between £400 and £750, although the most expensive machine that he has bought was £1,200.

Eddie, 49, head of horticulture at Bristol Zoo, keeps one of his machines at work where he and his colleagues play on their lunch break. They occasionally challenge the gardeners at Bristol University to a grudge match, after Eddie introduced them to the sport as well.

What is it that Eddie finds so enthralling about pinball?

"It's totally absorbing as a game," he says. "There's so much more to pinball than to computer games. There's a physical element as well. You have to nudge and push the table. You have to be accurate.

"Then there's also the puzzle of unlocking the game and getting into it."

Eddie is a founder member of the UK Pinball League, and he counts winning the league in 2008 as one of his best results as a player. Other highlights were coming second in the South Coast Slam in Woking last month, beating some top-rated European players along the way; and winning the team competition at the UK Pinball Show 2006 at Aston Villa's Villa Park stadium.

Eddie, currently ranked just outside the world's top 100, has also played at the European Championships in Holland, Sweden and Germany. He once travelled to Maidstone especially to play a new machine, but was left disappointed.

Eddie's wife Janice is tolerant of his unusual hobby.

"I think she has gone through phases," Eddie says. "She tolerates it more than joins in. I'm sure it has got on her nerves at times, but she's quite supportive now. She understands it."

Eddie began taking pinball more seriously when he realised the best way to play new machines was to enter competitions. There used to be three brand new machines on the pier at Weston, which Eddie played the week before the old pier burnt down.

He is hoping that pinball machines will be included in the new pier, because today it is becoming rarer to see machines in pubs and clubs. It's all to do with ergonomics, the best use of space, and fruit machines make more money than pinball machines.

Locally, Harry's Arcade in Bristol is a popular venue for pinball players. The next meeting of the South West region UK Pinball League takes place in Bristol on March 28.

For more information, visit www.ukpinballleague.co.uk.