Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 27/10/10

Stockport edge ahead of WithQuiz to nick the Trophy back across the Mersey

Results & Match Reports

Despite a rollicking final round in which they scored double the points of either of the other two teams the Sett Valley League ended up in the third corner as Stockport Quiz League just kept their noses in front long enough to regain the WIST Challenge Cup from WithQuiz.

It was a great start to the winter's quizzing season in the back lounge at the Albert Club as teams (6-a-side) and spectators crowded in to get the brain cells back in working order for the coming league competitions. Substitutions were allowed at the half time break but didn't seem to alter the flow of advantage as Stockport edged ahead.

In the event the traditional WIST playing/scoring systems stood up admirably to the pressure of having one more mouth to feed. Full credit for this must go the absent Mike Wagstaffe who spent a good deal of time pondering and then documenting the way to play this match fairly, yet without losing the variety offered by Stockport and WithQuiz styles of contest.

Sett Valley's team included WithQuiz regular Dave Barras (who is also a Sett Valley player) and Stockport had the benefit of Greg Spiller's wisdom in the second half (as well as being an Ethel Rodin player in the WithQuiz League, Greg regularly turns out for the Alex 'B' team in the Stockport League).

John Holden from Stockport pretty much agrees....

"It could have turned into a marathon, but the QM and scorer/timekeeper kept things moving at a good pace, so it never dragged; just the opposite. It was hard to think the three-team format would work so well, or that a paper could be constructed to suit it, but both those things happened.

Great to meet up with old friends and protagonists, and thanks to Sett Valley for joining in and making this unusual quiz happen.

As for the technology Mike employed, we are in awe, and it made the picture rounds inclusive and enjoyable.

In the written round we had the novelty of the only ever three point answer (from Andrea). This was a godsend as we had just dropped two points to both teams, but written rounds can produce such swings.

The game was of three halves, with a startling late burst of scoring by Sett Valley, while Stockport and Withington trundled on as ever, neck and neck. Thank heaven somebody else was keeping score, because we were frequently certain we had lost a round, only to find we’d drawn or won. Neither wins, one of us falls over the line first."

As for the (rather poor) photos......On the left Barry accepts the evening's trophy from losing WithQuiz captain Tony and on the right he shows it off to a largely disinterested winning team.

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper for this week's Friendly was set jointly by the Stockport League (Mike Wagstaffe) and WithQuiz (Mike Bath).

"Just about right" was the verdict with plenty of sighs and gasps as half remembered facts were dredged to the surface and half forgotten ones left on the sea bed.

The death of Mrs Devonshire earlier in the day led to a hasty adjustment to the wording of one of the questions - and the omission of the answer to the question about England's third highest ever international goal scorer from the QM's sheet led to a hurried conflab between the QM and football question maestro Dave Rainford (who was sitting on the WithQuiz team's bench in the first half). Otherwise all went according to the script.

The Question of the Week

This week, although nobody got it right, the most fun was had from Round 1 Question 4a:

This summer, presumably with too much time on their hands, Cambridge University Press conducted a global survey of the three words or phrases most commonly used by the world’s media to describe each of the teams taking part in the World Cup Finals in Brazil. For example, the top three descriptions of Spain were ‘defensive’, ‘poor’ and ‘humiliation’, for Russia it was ‘drab’, ‘error’ and ‘mediocre’ and Brazil were ‘emotional’, ‘popular’ and ‘desperate’.
Can you name any one of the three words used most frequently to describe England?

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

Chatterbox

To complement Kieran's memories of the league published on the site last season, Gerry Collins (Fr Megson) of the Charabancs has penned his own nostalgiafest which you can view by clicking here.

Next Wednesday sees the start of the League season proper with a paper from the History Men (see the Fixtures page for full details of the season to come). Note that Dunkin' Dönitz are INBTO by another name, otherwise there have been no changes from the line up for last season.

Do remember to text or email your results to me as soon as you can - preferably before midnight each Wednesday and (as ever) comments, light or serious, abusive or kindly, are 'grist for my mill' when I sit down in the wee small hours of each Thursday to get the week's QuizBiz article onto the Home page. So please keep those nuggets flowing in. The more correspondents the merrier.