Results & Match Reports

• Snoopy's Friends eased past a 25% under strength Albert - unfortunately the Albert team hadn't realised that Snoopy's had a new venue and Eveline went missing in the confusion

SO...BE AWARE:

SNOOPY'S ARE NO LONGER PLAYING HOME GAMES AT ST CATH'S CLUB - THEY HAVE MOVED TO HOUGH END SPORTS & SOCIAL CLUB ON MAULDETH ROAD WEST (click here for details)

• Stumped were narrow losers to X-Pats who seem to be making a good late run

• St Caths moved back up to second place in the table with a win over Electric Pigs

• Fifth Finger, humbled last week, got the show back on the road with a win over Albert Park

• ...and finally in a thriller at the Albert Club, last week's Fingerlickers, Ethel Rodin, in front all the way, slipped and slithered to a breathtaking tie in the final round with the Opsimaths

Quiz Paper Verdict

The Brains set their traditional Bingo Quiz this week (see below for Fr M's views on the paper).  There were plenty of 'Well I never!' moments (such as the QOTW below) - always a sign of a good quiz - but also the occasional stinker (Q70: 'What cheese is made in reverse?').  Round the grounds the comments were universally favourable.  Kieran wondered if Gerry & co might have been a little cowed by recent criticism in the 'perfect quiz paper' debate.  All in all a pretty entertaining evening.

For more debate and comment on question paper styles go to the 'perfect quiz paper' page.  Do email me if you have some thoughts of your own on this subject that you would like to add to the page.

The average aggregate score this week was 71.4 - a good middling average.  Actual aggregates varied from 65 (Stumped/X-Pats) to 75 (St Caths/Pigs).

The Question of the Week

Although Q67 (the 'crane's foot' one) got some favourable mentions, the Opsimathic choice for 'Question of the Week' award goes to Question 68:

Of what are these the statistics: "First Class 62%; Second Class 42%; Third Class 25%; Crew 23%"

(to see the answer to this and all the other questions click here.)

Chatterbox

Thursdays?

You may recall that we had a vote at the end of last season on changing from Wednesday to Thursday evenings as our regular match day.  It was a close run thing but Wednesdays just won the vote.  Chatting to the teams at the Oak this week there was a feeling that the groundswell for Thursdays has increased and that we need to have another vote.  I don't see us changing in mid league season but how about changing to Thursdays as an experiment for the cup matches (especially if there is local interest in the later stages of the European Champions Cup)?  Can we use the website as a sounding board for this issue?  I'll publish any feedback I get.

Feedback 1:

St Caths and X-Pats discussed this issue after their recent match and were firmly in favour of sticking to Wednesdays.

Feedback 2:

Copland has come back saying that Stumped also vote strongly against switching to Thursdays.

Feedback 3:

Mary O'Brien (Albert) favours keeping to Wednesday - at least until we've had a chance to debate the issue again at this season's gala night.

Refurbishment at the Red

A warning for the coming weeks:  we believe the Red Lion will be closed for refurbishment during the last week in March and the first week in April.  The Historymen and Ethel Rodin will need to make some alternative arrangements and we will have to fix an alternative pick-up point for the questions.  The Fletcher Moss has been suggested as a pick-up point.  Anyhow, Gary D is on the case and will advise all concerned shortly.

Football Oddities

I published this question a few weeks ago:

Who came next in the sequence Don, Johnny, Ronnie, Ron, Ronnie, Ron, Johnny, Ron, Ron and to what is this referring?

X-Pat John Brennand was first to give me the correct answer to this one.

They were the first names of the Managers of West Bromwich Albion FC between 1977 and 1988 - and the next one in the chain was Brian Talbot.  In sequence they were Don (Howe), Johnny (Giles), Ronnie (Allen), Ron (Atkinson), Ronnie (Allen), Ron (Wylie), Johnny (Giles), Ron (Saunders) and Ron (Atkinson).

Fr Megson

Marshall Dillon and his Smoking Gun

A Chairde,

Schadenfreude was rife in the Reeks last weekend as thousands of Reality TV junkies were bussed in to witness the mental disintegration of Finger V who have failed abysmally to come to terms with their first straight defeat in a row at the baby-lotioned hands of Mildred Rodin.  Relegation is now a very real threat for the troubled boy-band.  Team mentor and former cup-bearer to the Gods, Marshall Dillon admitted to having had a frank and earnest exchange with his underlings (not a Frank and Earnest sex change as was earlier reported in THE SPORT) in the post match shower room.

"Things were said and limbs were sundered in the heat of the sauna that perhaps would have been best left unsaid and unsundered", he told REEKS SPEAKS Radio (well worth listening to for news, current affairs and goat prices if you can be bothered twiddling your digital cat's whisker every time a magpie lands on your roof).

"With hindsight I now accept that I may have piqued too early.  I am truly sorry that Martin (bruised pride and shattered ribs), Anthony (pelvic disrhythmia) and Michael (chronic tinnitus) will now miss the rest of the season.  On the good news front, though, I am delighted to say that Barry has regained partial consciousness, which is pretty much how things used to be - and his team of doctors say that in a matter of weeks he should be able to sit up and recognise basic flags and football grounds.  Unfortunately, however, his map-drawing days are over.  I have also come to the conclusion that my decision to curtail the team from meeting with wives and girlfriends (separately, of course) except between the hours of 7.30 and 8.00pm on Sunday evenings may have been ill-advised especially if, as now seems likely, they fail en masse to win the ratings war with Coronation Street.

"At the end of the vespers we are all seasoned professionals and we will come through this crisis.  OK so we may be crippled physically and mentally for a few years but you can't make whoopie without cracking a few jokes can you? Know what I mean? The easy way out would be to hide away from those busloads of clodhoppers out there who have come to laugh at us, call us beastly names and sing 'Can we play you every week?'.  But hiding is strictly for wimps and I double dare anyone to call us wimps, especially Barry.  Now could you and your sound recordist kindly vacate this Mothercare changing cubicle as myself and the team want to eat our Pot Noodles in peace."

Should Marshall Dillon stand down and seek political asylum in the safer climes of Haiti?  Have your say now on www.allezennomdedieuallez dot cotton.

Father Megson is writing this homily on a Tuesday night as a welcome distraction from setting quiz questions.  His time management has been less than perfect of late and it now seems fairly likely that the March 3rd quiz will turn out to be the first 32 perfect question quiz paper of the season (simmer down Ivor, I said you might be getting a 32 question quiz not a 32 county Ireland). If this happens please don't panic. My solution would be to double your first half score and then seasonally adjust by deducting, say, 19 points to equalise the "pissed as a newt" factor that tends to kick in during the second half of most quiz matches - and all of ours.  Et voilà - a perfectly balanced quiz.  No messy turning around for the second half (which has always confused Fr. M who feels that reversing is strictly for wimps) and you will be home in good time to see Trevor Mc Donald simpering on the telly.  What's that Mike?  Oh, you're wondering about spares.  I don't know.  Ask the barmaid or make your own up.  Use your bloody initiative.   Fr. Megson is going to bed.