Well, the longest season in WithQuiz history is finally over, and Ethel Rodin just managed to hang on in there and clinch our first ever league title.

We’ve used the same 4 players in every match over that time, and whilst Greg is clearly our MVP, Geoff, Roddy and I all usually bring something different into the mix.

Notwithstanding the COVID break, it’s been a strange season; the vast majority of our wins have been very close, whilst the few we lost we were generally battered!  Hence our low goal difference in comparison to the chasing teams, and hence the need for us to get 2 points last night rather than 1.

We welcomed the Electric Pigs to the newly refurbished (in very much ‘down to earth’ beige tartan) Ladybarn Social Club. It’s had a lot of money spent on it, so looks good, sells good beer (it had Marble Brewery’s excellent ‘Pint’ last night) and remains the ideal kind of venue for quizzing.

We managed to achieve the 2 points we needed.  We all felt that The Pigs suffered the harder set of questions, and they went a long way behind after only 2 rounds.  As with our opponents last week, there was a steady recovery from then on, but we held on for the win.

Gentle tease to Andrew Simcock, who after a lengthy period of reflection gave Match of The Day 2 presenter Colin Murray as Bush’s first Secretary of State. Such half remembering of an answer is easily done (before now I have accused the actress Anne-Marie Duff of being poet laureate).

(R2/Q1)

..and Andrew adds...

A very enjoyable evening in the much improved Ladybarn Community Club (aka The White Swan). Although Ethel led from the off The Electric Pigs were never out of this contest.

It was the 'Prime Minister' Round 2 - paradoxically one of my supposed specialist subjects - where we lost out by going second.  Overall, a most enjoyable quiz.

(R3/Q5)

Albert win to finish fourth

Mike O'B reports...

We gave The Didsbury a try as a venue and we have decided to adopt it as our home venue for the foreseeable future.  This was a good toss to win and go first since the Charas seemed to get the hardest of the questions.  It is as if the dark shadow of the curse of Megson has blighted the fortunes of his team.

(R6/Q2)

...and Damian has his say...

In the confines of the Didsbury Hotel which would now appear to be the Albert's new venue (thus rendering their name even more obsolete) we decided to dub tonight's proceedings 'Father Megson's Revenge', the written equivalent of a wild and expletive-driven tirade from our former captain for all the failures we inflicted on him over the past umpteen seasons.  With his dog-eared old missal, smouldering fag end (the last of his candles were confiscated after that misunderstanding with his housekeeper) and a half-full bottle of Bells, he has cursed us never to score more than 30 points in all subsequent quizzes whilst our opponents will beat us by an increasingly humiliating scoreline.

We are currently  negotiating with Blair's Witch in the hope that a counter-blast of some timely black magic will finally bang him to rights.  Didn't 30 points used to be enough to win a quiz back in the good old days or is nostalgia not quite what we imagine it to be? 

(R7/Q6)