WIST Champions Cup (Final)

KFD lost to Prodigals

Eons ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, the Prodigals achieved an epoch-defining victory at the Griffin.  Our success that evening was largely put down to us inadvertently taking the seats in the front room usually occupied by our then, all-conquering hosts.  Well, after a barren couple of years and the mid-season departure of our star player we felt it necessary to resort to such underhand ruses once again.  So, I’d like to personally thank the crack cadre from the Urmston Unsettlement Unit for their timely occupation of KFD’s regular domain (I’ll see you in the Lord Nelson on Sunday for liquid remuneration lads).  Visibly unnerved by this turn of events, Kieran and co. suggested we decamp to the middle room, the usual stomping ground of the Charas.  

It was then our skipper Anne-Marie played her master card, a piece of shithousery the likes of which has not been seen since the 1978 World Cup final when Argentina delayed proceedings by protesting against the padded, plaster-encased arm of one of the van de Kerkhof brothers, even though he had played the whole tournament with a cast on.  Somehow, nobody knows for sure how, the question paper got lost.  Charlie behind the bar had seen neither hide nor hair of it.  The minutes ticked by, tension racked up unbearably, even the usually insouciant Bogotá Bob was feeling the strain.  An urgent call was made to Mike Bath but the paper was nowhere to be found.  There was talk of a coin toss to decide the destiny of the WIST Champions Cup.  Dark forces were at work across the land.  And then, miraculously, it just appeared from underneath a load of local election voting papers on the bar.  But it was too late for KFD.  They were gone.  We could see it in their eyes; once mighty quizzers reduced to disheartened, shivering husks who wouldn’t know their Wilfred Pickles from their Mr Pastry if you prodded them.  It was the Prodigals time to shine!  

Racing into a 7-point lead after the initial conferred Stockport-style round, we extended it to 9 points in the written round.  As McFadden and Whitehead once proclaimed “ain‘t no stoppin’ us now".  KFD briefly rallied during the WithQuiz rounds, like a wily old boxer using the ropes, moving instinctively to the beat of their own internal drum, but as Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams declared back in the day, it was “too much, too little, too late".  

So, the Prods become only the second team (after KFD) to win all five of the trophies up for grabs and Richard becomes the first person to win the WIST Champions Cup with two different teams.  Post-match he proclaimed himself the 'Clarence Seedorf of quizzing' and, to be fair, he was our best player on the night, channelling his inner Alberto Tarantini (the manic, drug-fuelled Tarantini of those long, hot, crazy pampas nights in the early summer of 1978, not that shyster who turned up at St Andrews a few months later).  

And so onto another final next week, against our bête noires, the History Men, and we start with a two-point handicap.  What devious stratagems can we deploy this time to ensure victory?  Possibly a Don Revie-style 'honey-trap'?  Watch the skies Ivor … watch the skies.

Kieran adds his postscript

Congratulations to the Prodigals on their victory tonight and on becoming the second (ahem!) team to complete the career grand slam of all five major trophies available to WithQuiz teams.  And well done too to the Albert who are the third team to do it - or maybe the second depending on when their match finished over in the Sun in September.  

Pah!  Everything is getting devalued these days - a football club will likely do the double back to back sometime soon.

Not our sort of quiz.