Compulsory Mantis Shrimps beat Tiviot

Travellers Call lost to Dunkin’ Dönitz

The Opsimaths lost to Smart Italics

The History Men lost to The Printers

Hatters Arms lost to The Prodigals

The Bards of Didsbury beat Loko. Stöckpört

Last season's fourth placed WithQuiz team, Compulsory Mantis Shrimps, just squeaked through against last season's joint Stockport League champions, Tiviot.  Rachael who leads WithQuiz's only 2017/18 100% team tells the tale....

Kieran reports....

"Barry has a strictly adhered to self-denying ordinance when it comes to the first round of the WIST Cup.  He gets interested for the later rounds when there's a sniff of glory - but in all the years this competition has been going I don't think he's ever appeared in the quarter final.  True to form he's taken himself and Deborah off to Rome (I think they did manage to catch the plane this year - he didn't turn up looking embarrassed at any rate) and so super-sub Simon once more came to our aid.

To Great Moor and the Travellers Call.  A proper Robbie's pub perched on the A6 which the brewery has renovated since our last visit four years' ago.  They've imaginatively painted the inside of the little room where the quiz is played the same shade of utilitarian wartime surplus grey that adorns the outside of all Robbie's pubs.  Martin said it reminded him of a Farrow and Ball colour but the execution of the decorating was far from their standards.  Understandably the makeover had removed almost all the faux maritime paraphernalia that hadn't sat well stranded halfway between those two great seafaring towns Stockport and Hazel Grove.  Confusingly five ship's bells remain, unnamed, unrung and frankly unlovely.  Worst of all the fantastically quirky pictures of great Argentinian footballers of our youth are no longer to be found hanging on those dull grey walls.  Why Robinson's, just why?  Some misguided Maoist cultural purge?  Oh my Caniggia and my Burruchaga long ago.

The Travellers welcomes its patrons with a blackboard notice stating "No dirty work gear after 9 pm".  I've got to go there at lunch time.  I bet it's filthy.  And what if, after a hard day's work, in need of a drink late in the evening, you pitch up in a tailor made suit on which you've unfortunately spilled ink or smeared lunch time barbecue sauce?  Would there be bouncers?

At half time a peripatetic musician wandered in off the street carrying a plastic trombone which had a bright red bell and a black slide.  If he could be said to have got a tune out of the instrument it wasn't anything that was recognisable until his none too certain voice gave out the words to The Girl From Ipanema and Somewhere Over The Rainbow.  And the locals clapped and cheered him and encouraged him to play and sing more as the night wore on. A proper, proper Manc pub that puts the atmosphere-less, and overheated, Griffin to shame.  My only gripe was that the juke box is an absolute belter and it was silenced for the very good purpose of accommodating our happy minstrel.

In amongst all these distractions there was a quiz which was rather good and in which we led from beginning to end.  A paper which suited us perfectly, all our informed guesses coming good with no pass-overs given to our genial opponents.

The Smarties were just about the better side in a close contest where the lead veered backwards and forwards.  Interestingly for the Albert Club maintenance committee, when I retrieved 'David Herd' (Round 4 Question 8) from the recesses of my brain after an agonising delay of what seemed like an hour, I clattered exactly the same spot on the wall that I hit last year when we played the Dunkers and I got 'Ripley' at the death to snatch victory.  Even our most cerebral activity seems to take its toll on the fabric of our playing arenas!

From the winner's rostrum Mike Wagstaffe sees the match thus....

"As usual we thoroughly enjoyed our latest WIST Champions Cup match - these matches always provide a welcome diversion from the regular league programme.  Our opponents, The Albert, were one of the few WithQuiz teams that we had yet to play in 'Europe' and, as last year's runners-up, they probably arrived in Edgeley as bookies' favourites.

The match was always close, in fact the only time we led was in the last of the six rounds.  The Albert won the first round by four and we reduced their lead to two by half-time.  We levelled early in the second half only for The Albert to edge ahead again.  Our 2 twos and 2 'steals' in the first four questions of Round 6 were the clincher so that we eventually won by four points."

Mike O'B sums up from the viewpoint of the losing team....

"This was a good contest, very tight all the way through with the lead changing several times.  We lost it in the final round really when we fell apart. Ironically we came out top in the Stockport format but couldn't do the same in the WithQuiz section.

The History Men lost by a way to The Printers.  Ivor sends his usual dispatch....

"The Lowly Grail Cup game saw a suitably lowly performance from us.  We were losing to our opponents 24-15 after Round 1 and, although we staged a recovery to be only 3 points behind after Round 3 (the first of the WithQuiz-style rounds), we lost the last three rounds to be well beaten.  The Printers were actually the reserve team for the Lowly Grail series as winners of last season's Stockport second division title.  How lucky we are in Withington to have just a single league and no relegation or even the ignominy of applying for re-election!  This was The Printers' first ever game against us and despite the absence of home team-provided food and our raucous banter (it does not take much to set Anne off) we all had a good night’s entertainment."

....and Mike H chips in....

"The History Men can now concentrate on the league having won just two of the rounds and losing by an aggregate of 10 points.

"In the absence of the rest of the Ethel Regulars (who were representing Stockport team, Smart Italics, in the WIST Champion's Cup trophy), I put together a team including my father-in-law Lloyd and a couple of quiz league rookies.  With youth on his side, Danny struggled with this paper, visibly deflating when hit with yet another �'Which 1960s.....' question - but he did drag 'Take That' from somewhere, although even that happened when he was only ten year's old.  Meanwhile baby-boomer Bernard excelled and helped our score reach respectability.

We were 22-17 down after Round 1 (all 4 unanswered questions falling to us) but then closed the gap to 28-25 after the written round.

The Withington rounds also gave us 4 unanswered questions to their 2.  The final score slightly flattered HMRUFC since our challenge petered out with a a 5-1 deficit on the final round that we'd needed to win 5-0.

At the Albert Club we thoroughly enjoyed it and there were no gripes at all.  Perhaps a few raised eyebrows at the post-code lottery that assailed our brains at Round 2 Question 5 (neither team unravelled this one) but loads to smile at.  The themes were excellently executed (not always easy to do) and as far as I can recall the balance worked out well with neither team feeling that they had an unfair share of the unanswerables.  I gather most of the paper was compiled in deepest western Ireland yet there was nothing on land-locked Irish counties or half-remembered Taoiseachs.  Many thanks, Gerry.

Comments from others?

Ivor....

"As expected a bit of a hard quiz - though it didn't seem to phase the Printers, several of whom have faced the late William G Stewart in Fifteen to One.  There were the usual hard luck stories: opting for the wrong either/or answer (jay, 19th Century Presidents), the blurts (Kim Philby!), the sitting in the wrong seat (English disease - what would Young David know about syphilis?) - as well as total incomprehension or ignorance (Stockport footballers in their prime before even Tim was born).  I was posed the 'Stolen from Ivor' question which I did not know, but luckily the answer was stolen by Tim rather than the opposition.

If we have to set in the next round Anne has promised a whole round on knitting (the 30 question Stockport-style round naturally."

Mike O'B....

"There were some great answers from both teams.  The past participles theme was the best of the WithQuiz rounds, but the 30 questions of Round 1 were generally very good.

Without wishing to place too much criticism on a pretty well-constructed paper (and what I'm going to say here could be said most weeks), I do feel that if the league is to continue to thrive in the longer term, it's going to have to attract more young players.  If upon debut, their confidence is destroyed with a raft of questions based almost exclusively upon the cultural experiences of people twice their age, it�'s little wonder that the number of teams gradually shrinks rather than grows.  After all, even relative newcomers, CMR, have had to dispense with their youth policy to increase their chances of consistent success."

Mike Wagstaffe....

"We thought it was an absolute gem of a paper - hats off to Gerry.  There were very few unanswered questions in either format, no obvious imbalance in the pairing of questions and an aggregate of 108 compares very favourably with previous scores throughout the history of the competition.  The Alex's nomination for QotW would be R6 Q5 as a) getting this right meant we couldn't be caught and b) we were amused that in 13th century England fish weirs were considered to be of higher priority than the application of justice."

Anne-Marie....

"Well done Father Megson on a super quiz."

Rachael....

"Generally the questions were interesting and well balanced, and we had a very enjoyable and exciting evening of quizzing."

....and the Dave Barras Question of the Week award this week has been nominated by The Alexandra team and goes to Round 6 Question 5:

A hotpot supper will be laid on and we are in the process of organising a guest speaker to say a few words and host a short quiz in the middle of the evening.