Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 02/10/13

High-scoring start to the new season; Charas, Ethel and Bards all win with scores that top 40 points

Results & Match Reports

TMTCH came second to a new look Opsimaths in a friendly evening at the Parrswood. A very warm welcome to new Opsimath, Paddy!

The Bards were well behind at the half way mark but - despite being Steveless - managed to overhaul Albert at the Cricket Club.

The Prodigals fought a hard fight but were always just a tad behind the Charabancs who looked suspiciously like they'd been in training in the close season. Damian's pen, rested over the summer, is back in full (and I do mean full) flow...

"The Charas managed to kick off their 2013-14 campaign with a victory in the opening match. As you can tell from the high score, this was a close contest from start to finish. After honours were even in the first round, the Charas stayed just ahead in all the ensuing rounds. If we can carry on in this vein, who knows, we may even manage to retain our hard-won Val Draper cup from last season! Maybe the spirit of dear Val has a penchant for dodgy Irish priests, and likes having her cup displayed on Father M's mantelpiece along with all the empty bottles of rare vintage poteen and de-consecrated altar wine."

The Electric Pigs enjoyed a welcome victory at the Fletcher Moss against the History Men after a dreadful campaign last year that started badly and got worse. Let's hope 2013/14 sees the Pigs flying. Ivor reports in from the losing corner...

"Traditionally the Electric Pigs start slowly and only come to life in the end of season cup games, as exemplified by last season's performance when they were the whipping boys of the league but then cup runners-up.

Tonight, however, they emerged from the close season refreshed and animated - so much so that they belied their reputation of playing slower than a ladies four-ball golf match by actually finishing at 10.14 allowing sufficient time for drinks to be bought and prolonged post-quiz banter to be traded."

Meat Raffle lost their opener at the Turnpike to Ethel Rodin - not least because they were pretty slow to identify the themes compared to their guests.

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper for this first week of the League season was set by I've Never Been To One.

Well the one that they've never been to certainly wasn't a Champions League game since half INBTO were at the Etihad (like myself) suffering in the presence of almost certainly the best team in Europe. Some consolation perhaps for David and Kieran (and Martin and Barry) is that their paper went down very well. A perfect opener for the new season and a reminder of how special our style of home cooked quizzes really are.

Some of the feedback....

The Opsimaths: "An enjoyable and accessible paper; the cricketers theme was very well disguised".

The Bards: "A fair paper in the end with the balance towards one team in the first half being cancelled out by the balance towards their opponents in the second half".

Electric Pigs: "A great quiz".

Roddy reporting in for Ethel, gave an overall thumbs up....

"Answers of the week were Great British Bake Off and Scotty Moore. Non-questions of the week were the 'Not Montgomery' one, and most of round 8 (which might have been frustrating if the two teams had been tightly locked after round 7). Ethel over-performed on topics such as Indian Mountain Railway lines compared to their hosts. A good quiz though. Just about right."

Ivor, speaking for the History Men, summed it up thus...

"All agreed that tonight's quiz was a great season opener. The 'what happened' picture round was round of the week (even though the Pigs scored zero and we scored 9). That round catapulted us from 6 behind to 3 ahead and kept the game close to the last round which is just what a good quiz needs to generate excitement and interest. QotW - the connection of Tchaikovsky, Proust and Bolan."

and Damian giving the Charas' views...

"Tonight's quiz was well up to the excellent standards of the team formerly known as the Smoke Fairies (sorry Kieran and co, but I can't quite seem to get to grips with your new name as of yet). Plenty of material to please everybody. We all particularly enjoyed the picture round which admittedly played well to our traditional strengths. It was well thought out and well-crafted. Good quiz, good fun.

We thought QotW was actually one of the spares - the one about the first person to miss a penalty in the final of the 1994 World Cup. Father M seemed to think it was a bit of an old chestnut but the rest of us were thoroughly surprised and amused by it. Well, Yours Truly was anyway. Why, oh why wasn't it incorporated into the quiz proper?"

The Question of the Week

This first week I'll give Andrew the vote on behalf of the Pigs and he chooses Round 1 Question 6:

What word connects Tchaikovsky, Proust and Marc Bolan?

For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here.