Albert, with only 2 players, finished the league season on a high by beating the X-Pats and screaming up the table to 4th slot

History Men coasted home after another successful (though not quite triumphant) season - this time the victims being a 3-man Albert Park.  I'm sure Ivor and his Men (shouldn't it be People?) will be up there again amongst the leaders next time round.

Mad Dogs carried off their 'lap of honour' match in style with a comfortable home victory over Ethel Rodin.  Even more of a challenge than winning the league year after year is achieving success without any of the rest of us resenting being cast in the role of underDogs.  My sense is that Kieran and co. have managed this harder task yet again.  Well done!  But beware Dogs, something ominous is stirring at the Stadium of Murk!

(Oh, and by the way, Kieran has changed his email address - see the 'Teams and Contact Details' page)

From the following definitions name the three words that are listed consecutively in the dictionary:

(a) a hard, fine-grained, dark volcanic rock

(b) a device that counterbalances so that when one end is lowered, the other is raised

(c) a foundation, or fundamental ingredient.

That's it folks.  Another Withquiz league season ends not with a bung (..nice try, Brother Damian..) but with the whimpering of Rabid Mutts.

Once again many questions were left unanswered during the season and once again most of them revolved around Fr. Megson's inherent inability to lead his team to a quiz title.  Has the league's highest paid priest become a luxury we can no longer afford?  Is it time to ditch the deacon?.... sack the sacristan?

Now is the time to find out if Fr. M. is capable of handling his knockers.  As you know, he no longer talks to the media but we clubbed together and promised him a slap-up meal (without the meal) on condition that he should subject himself to some rigorous scrutiny.  What follows is a transcript of the secret tapes.  Withquiz's very own Megsongate.

Mike Opsimath:

Winston Churchill famously described Rusholme as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enema".  Many of my Withquiz brethren feel that this description might equally apply to you, Father.  So let's begin with a very basic question.  Just what is it, Father, that makes you tick?

F.M:

Fcek off, ye hoor.  Just because my team is tick doesn't make me tick.  Tick, my erse.  I'm a feckin Eisenstein compared to you, ye big superannuated Sassenach gombeen.  Ask me any US state capital..........go on, any one you like. Even Des Boise.....See, motormouth, you're all blether and no fur knickers.  Step outside and we'll see who's tick......be warned though....... I was a bareknuckle fisting champion in the Ring of Kerry during my youth......put 'em up, ye Sassanach varlot.......

Gary Pig:

Calm down Father.....eat your sausages before they get cold.  There's a good boy.  Nobody's calling you thick.  In fact your epistemological knowledge is the envy of every pensioner who ever fell asleep in the bar of St. Cath's social club.  Tell us Father, this great passion of yours for philosophy, is it innate or acquired?

F.M:

Acquired.  Picture the scene: A humid Saturday evening in 1986. ...."And now on BBC1"......I sat mentally transfixed and physically erect.  The happy conjunction of so much blood, bodily fluids, starched white uniforms and functional black tights made me swoon and I realised I had now embarked on a lifelong voyage of passion.  I simply had to get more of this.... Unfortunately I wasted the next three years thumbing through bleedin' philosophy tracts before me mammy pointed out that the soap opera in question was called CASUALTY and not CAUSALITY.

Roz Rodin:

What's your favourite chat up line, Father?

F.M:

I'm pretty much a "Heh,babe, d'ya come here often?" kinda guy..... and I think the results speak for themselves, babe.  Mind you, it has on occasion led to a few moments of embarrassed silence whenever I use it in the confession box especially up the road at the convent.  Those Sisters of Perpetual Succour are a bit traditional for my liking.  Loosen up babes, you've nothing to lose but your wimples.

Kieran Dog:

Your reference to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic sacrament of confession leads me nicely into a very pertinent question, Father: Does the concept of absolution ever occasion you to have feelings of negativity of almost Nietszchean proportions?  Or, if I might paraphrase that in the vernacular, does it ever get on your tits a bit having to sit there and forgive people all the time even when you know that they are all basically tosspots who haven't an ounce of contrition in their beer sodden, fat-encrusted hearts?  Incidentally, I trust there are no hard feelings about my team once again beating your lot to the league title.  Sorry about that.  It's getting a bit monotonous now, isn't it Father?  Let me just say how much I admire your ability to be a pathetic loser every year and still come back the following year like a demented fcekin' groundhog looking for even more grief.

F.M:

Keeping it in the vernacular - P### off, my son.

Mike St. Cath:

What advice, Father, would you give to me and the other young blades in the village who are thinking of settling down and entering into the holy sacrament of Matrimony?

F.M:

Well Mike, I think it was Hegel who so wisely declaimed: "Ihr Schwimmvest ist unter dem Sitz."

John X-Pat:

What was the first word you ever looked up in a dictionary, Father, and how was it for you?

F.M:

CUNEIFORM.  I was six at the time.  The experience was O.K. but I remember feeling a bit cheated.  If me mammy hadn't been so quick to rip the batteries out of my torch I might have got to the word I was really looking for.

Ivorhistoryman:

What did you go off for Lent this year?

F.M:

Celibacy and Maltesers.

Ivor:

Was it hard?

F.M:

Impossible, Ivor, impossible.  Whenever I managed to smooch my way into a position of non-celibacy, I started fantasising about Maltesers.

Ivor:

I know just what you mean, Father, I'm always doing that.

F.M:

Must be a Northern Irish thing!

TonySnoopy:

If you hadn't been a priest, Father, what would you have been?

F.M:

Sober.

Tony;

No, you berk, what profession would you have embarked upon?

F.M:

Well, m'learned friend, like you I was mad keen to join The Axis Of Evil.  It seemed a less stuffy option than the Civil Service - although their pension plan was a bit up in the air.  I did actually get as far as sitting their entrance exam.  They said my potential for Evil was really quite promising but unfortunately I didn't have the maths - and you always need the maths, as Peter Cooke so rightly pointed out.  I also narrowly failed the SYNCHRONISE YOUR WATCHES practical module.

Dusty Albert:

May God forgive me, Father, but I'm a fierce woman for the cynicism - it 's an occupational hazard with all us Fulham FC supporters, Father.  My question would have to be: Just how do I know you exist, Father? You see, I've been trawling the fleshpots of Didsbury for years now on the lookout for you and that other man in black, you know, that nice man who delivers the Dairy Milk into sleeping women's boudoirs.  I keep bumping into Colinski but your're never there, Father.  No offence Father, but are you sure now that you're not just a figment of some eejit's fevered brow?

F.M:

Now listen Dusty.  If I was really a figment how would you explain the rapid disappearance of all those sausages that were on my plate five minutes ago.  Keep the faith, sister.  Seek and ye shall find.  Actually I saw you in the Fletcher Moss on Monday night.  I was in the corner sharing a pint with The Holy Ghost.  He very kindly popped down to help us set the questions for the final league match of the season (I have to say he's not as inspired as people make him out to be).  You must have spotted him - smarmy looking dude in the white suit and pony-tail.  The one that kept trying to chat up the barmaid in tongues of fire.... I hate it when people do that - it's so fcekin pentecostal.

Richard Albert Park:

As you know Father, it has been a life long ambition of mine to be buried in a cathedral.  The full monty, you know, crypt, tomb, big alabaster effigy of me dressed as a Crusader knight and a nice cuddly wolfhound lying at my feet keeping my tootsies warm.  I have applied three times, Father, but they say they've never even heard of me.  So I was wondering, Father, would it be O.K. with you if I broke into the church some evening and doctored my baptism cert. to read "son of Mr and Mrs Richard Lionheart"?  Also Father, I was wondering if you were ever buried in a cathedral?

F.M:

Frequently, Richard, Frequently.

Richard:

Wow, really Father? ....I mean, really really?  Wow!  Mega!  I bet that was well cool, Father.  Did you have one of them plaques on the wall with writing and stuff on it?

F.M:

Yes, my boy - an epitaph inscribed in Latin.

Richard:

Latin?  Wow!!   Well cool!!  You actually got to read your own epitaph in Latin? Wow! Mega!  What did it say?

F.M:

HIC JACET PATER MEGSONIUS - HOMO QUI PIST IN EPISTLE INSERTAVIT.

Richard:

Wow!! Megacool!!. ....that's well good Latin. ...........any idea what it means?.....never mind........ I don't care what they all say about you Father - I'm well impressed.  I think you are one cool sacerdotal dude.

F.M:

Amen, my son, Amen.  Tell me, O brave Crusader effigy, are you going to eat them sausages or not?  There's people starving over here.................