An arcade game expert has restored a classic machine, making it the only working version left in the world.

Canterbury Christ Church University academic Dr Alan Meades discovered that two machines from the hugely popular Street Fighter franchise were languishing in a store room used by the trust which runs Dreamland.

He used their parts to create one wholly functioning machine ahead of the Margate amusement park’s reopening last Friday.

It is now believed to be the only working version of the game left in the world.

The 36-year-old said: “Many of us were brought up playing on these arcade games in the chip shops and seaside arcades.

“Dreamland is recycling the stuff which is broken and I thought it would be a tragic loss if it was broken up and used for something else, so I set about preserving it.”

Dr Meades spent four days working on the game, which is called Street Fighter 2 Ken Sei Mogura.

Originally intended solely for the Japanese market, the game is a hybrid of the Street Fighter fighting game and the whack-a-mole games popular in arcades in the 1980s and 1990s.

A knowledge of electronics helped Dr Meades put together a working game.

He is uncertain as to what Dreamland will do with the machine and whether it will be played on or simply put on display.

Dr Meades, whose main job is as a senior lecturer in graphic design, went on: “Unlike the traditional Street Fighter 2 game that used buttons, this version invited the player to hit enemies with padded hammers as they popped out of holes, a whack-a-mole game type.

“While I have a vague memory of playing one of these games at an arcade in Margate in the late 1990s I’d not seen any other references to this Street Fighter II game online or on any of the arcade machine collecting forums that I visit.

“It was apparent that there was something unusual about this game.”

Dr Meades hopes the game will be uploaded to the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, which allows people to play classic arcade and computer games via their PCs.

He added: “While these game cabinets are of negligible commercial value, culturally they are highly important.

“It is also interesting to mull over the idea that a game produced by one of the largest video game manufacturers in the world less than 20 years ago can be effectively lost, with no known examples left.”

Dr Meades is due to publish a book on video game culture later in the year.

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