The Albert pub in Didsbury (long since renamed The Fletcher Moss) has provided a league team since the start.  In an act of defiance to the brewery they insist on keeping the old pub name alive.  When known as Icarus they were led by the doughty, but sadly late, Val Draper who is remembered each season via the end of season cup which bears her name.

Of late they have been hard to beat challenging a number of times for the league title.

Skipper Mike O'Brien rules his team with a rod of iron - or to be more precise his 'Paddle of Rebuke'.

At the start of the 2021/22 season they forsook The Fletcher Moss to base themselves in the broad expanses of The Didsbury.

And now at the start of the 2023/24 season the team have moved their home base to Burnage and The Sun in September on Burnage Lane (last used by the X-Pats many moons ago).

HONOURS:

WIST Champions Cup winners

WIST Lowly Grail winners

WithQuiz League winners

Val Draper Cup winners

Val Draper Cup runners up

WithQuiz Plate winners

WithQuiz Plate runners up

'Q of the Season' winners

EOS Tournament winners

Led by Rebekkah Ottaway for many years.  Involved in the only 'near pub brawl' incident when Scottish Tom fell out collectively with the Braggarts.  Suspension was only  averted by written apologies during the following week.

I seem to recall that this was an all-female team including Judy Taylor and Val Draper, based at the Albert/Fletcher Moss.  I believe they only lasted for one season.

Previously they did their quizzing in Merseyside where things were altogether more competitive.  After a spell in The Woodstock, St Catherine's Social Club, Hough End Social Club, The Didsbury and The Metropolitan and Didsbury Cricket Club their current base is The Parrswood Hotel.

In recent years they have been pretty successful winning the league a couple of times as well as the coveted WIST Champions Cup.

They continue to exhibit strong legal tendencies in their line-up bristling with judges, barristers and solicitors.  Cross them at your peril!!

New to the league in the 2010/11 season and based at The Albert Club.  Sadly they had to resign before their second season with us but we'd love to see them back some time in the future.

A few years ago they moved from the upmarket watering-holes of Didsbury back to their roots in The White Swan, Ladybarn (known around the league as 'The Stadium of Murk').  In 2011, however, the attractions of the White Swan, their Ladybarn watering-hole (and when I say 'watering-hole' I choose my words carefully) wore off and they moved to The Turnpike in Withington Village.  In 2018 however they decamped a few yards down the road to The Victoria.  More recently they moved up Didsbury Road to share The Griffin with KFD as their home venue.

Fr Megson (Gerry Collins) is now just an occasional player and has ceded the captaincy and pastoral duties to colleague Damian Land.

To read an interesting set of personal reminiscences of the earlier days of the League from Gerry Collins (a.k.a. Fr Megson) click here.

New to the league in the 2010/11 season and (until the start of the 2018/19 season) based at the Turnpike in Withington Village, they boast a bevy of University Challenge superstars from successive Manchester University teams.  Their knowledge of the more recent rock combos is awesome.

Now in 2018 after steadily progressing up the table for a few years they have achieved League Runners Up status.  Surely next season....

Following the closure of The Turnpike they have decamped to The Woodstock for the start of the 2018/19 season but then moved to the Parrswood Hotel early in 2019 which saw them once again Runners up by just a single point.

They were placed third in the elongated pandemic-wracked 2019/20 season, but then - with much regrets all round - they decided to quit WithQuiz to pursue quizzing success online on Wednesday evenings.  They will be much missed around South Manchester.

Led by the late John Turrell of 'Mild & Bitter' fame they consisted of various colourful characters including Val, 'Sid' Siddons and 'Sailor' Derek .  They vied with the Heyscroft Roaders in trying to lose each match so that they got the free pint at the end!  One season they reached the final play off evening held at St Caths.  They won their semi-final and were looking good for the final but, by the time the other semi-final had been played they were too drunk to speak and lost the final spectacularly.

Traditionally the league's frontrunners but can be upset by idiosyncratic papers.  Currently based at The Griffin in Heaton Mersey the present team is a result of a merger between the Sporting Braggarts and the Griffin.  In recent times beating them has become the main challenge for the other teams.  After 12 years of uninterrupted League glory 2011 saw them drop to second place in favour of the Opsimaths. To read an interesting set of personal reminiscences of the earlier days of the League from Kieran Dillon click here.

However in 2017 they regained the League crown which they retained in 2018.  There certainly seems to be life in the old dog yet!

A new dawn at the end of the 2024/25 season as stalwart team member Barry retires to East Anglia.  He'll be sorely missed!

... and as the 2025/26 season gets underway they've renamed themselves Советские космические собаки (which means 'Soviet Space Dogs') but the rest of us have permission to shorten this to CKC.

Another Fletcher Moss based team.  Thanks to Gary Donely, their captain, they shouldered the burden of league organisation when Barry Whitehead hung up his boots a few years ago - thus keeping the league alive.

They are the most perfectly behaved team when it comes to the intricate and ancient protocols surrounding the art of indicating knowledge of the answer and the subsequent conference.  A few years ago they were strengthened through the addition of Gerry Hennessy, one of the original WithQuiz stalwarts.

When Gerry died in 2017 Barry Whitehead rejoined them ensuring our founding father kept his hand in.  Sadly Barry died in 2022.

More recently they have specialised in cup runs rather than league glory winning the Val Draper trophy in the 2024/25 season.

For many years the hub of our competition thanks to Barry Whitehead who did all the organising.  They are usually to be found in the upper reaches of the league and, of late, have a knack of doing well in the cup competitions.

Nowadays they play their home matches at the Ladybarn Social Club, the much tarted up premises that used to be The White Swan, notorious in quizzing circles as 'The Stadium of Murk'.

They are determined to keep the name of the Red Lion alive via anagram but seem to have run out of variations since the current name has been in use for some years now.

Now, at long last, in a season prolonged by the COVID pandemic and lockdown Ethel kept on going to add the coveted League title to their honours board - as they did again in 2024!

Much missed when they quit at the end of the 2000/1 season.

The name came from Gerry Leversha and Bill Souster the team founders.  Other Gerbils included John Tolan (now with Ethel Rodin), Liz Barber, William Duggan, Ian Anderson and most memorably the cantankerous Alan McPhee.  Alan once declared "I do not know the answer but am NOT conferring" so the question had to be handed over!  And on another occasion when asked "What was the American equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary?" declared "There is NO equivalent".  Gerry L writes to tell me that a favourite team saying (presumably when stumped) was "I spit on your bourgeois questions!".  Ah, those golden days.  The Gerbils finally expired in about 1986.

Star performers for a number of years.  They ran the Braggarts close but then merged with the Braggarts when team members moved from the area.

Led by Ivor Cartmill and based at the Red Lion, they joined the league in the 2002/3 season.  Over the years they have usually been top half finishers though recently there's been a bit of a dip in form.

Nevertheless their cup form has been pretty good over the years including a victory in the WIST Lowly Grail inter-league trophy.

Kieran, captain of the Dunkin' Donitz squad, has long regarded the History Men as a bogey team and the annual visit of the History Men to the Griffin sends shivers down the Dunkers' spines.

Ivor and his crew have now moved from the less quiz-friendly Red Lion to base their home operations at the Parrswood Hotel.

Famed only for their quick exit.  They joined at the start of a season and then left before the half way mark.

Newcomers in the 2007/8 season, they play their home matches at the Parrswood Hotel on the corner of School Lane and Parrs Wood Road.  Their origins lie in the Sett Valley Pub Quiz League (based in the New Mills area) but they decamped in an effort to conquer the big city quizzers of Didsbury and Withington.  Although they never achieved a top half league finish they became the frontrunners for the Best Paper of the Season award.  The prospect of a new TMTCH question paper was only just behind the latest Harry Potter in terms of literary excitement.

So sadly in March 2017 their captain Dave died and the team were forced to leave the league.  Dave is sorely missed by all of us.

This team flirted seasonally between the Midland and the Railway.  It's main members were Sid Siddons, Pete McKie, Brian Randall, Simon Townsend and Chris Webb.  Chris would always storm off before the free pint if they lost but eventually agreed to have a whisky on these occasions so he could chuck it down and then storm off.

Led by Keith Glazzard they moved from the Friendship in Fallowfield to the Red Lion.  Folded a few years ago.

They became famous for their idiosyncratic QM, Jitka.  Once when she asked the question: "Who won the Men's boom in the Mexico Olympics?" it took both teams the rest of the quiz to discover that it was the 800 metres rather than some obscure yachting event to which she was referring.

But what's this?  Surely not!! It's 2011 and they've won the league.  Russ turns in his grave and Electric Pigs fly!!  And since then they've won 2 more League titles and the WIST crown.

They have always been rightly proud of the excellent standard of the papers they set.

Over the past few years they have been strengthened by Dave Rainford of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and Eggheads fame as well as by University Challenge Gonville & Caius winner Michael Taylor and they are no longer strangers to the top half of the table.

And then in 2019 after a rip-roaring charge up the table they won the League title - a feat they repeated in 2023.  The next year they capped things with a WIST Champions Cup victory meaning they have won all 5 major WithQuiz titles over a 7-year period.

In 2024/25 they went through an entire league season with just one league defeat on the way to capturing both the WIST Champions Cup AND the WithQuiz League title.  Their reputation as simply the best team in South Manchester of the mid 2020s is secure.

I believe it was the Rabbi that was responsible for the worst question of all time: "Who was the most famous racing driver of all time?"

Solid performers over the years with a number of league titles to their name.  Despite their association with religion they claim that the last time they got  a religious question right Methuselah was in short trousers (no, this is not a reference to their captain, the venerable Mike Heale!!).  After many years at the summit St Caths were forced into retirement after the 2005/6 season.  Sadly Mike Heale passed away in 2009.  R.I.P.

Long-serving league stalwarts.  Famous for their whacky question papers (including phials of sample beer for identification one year - and another time 64 questions on November 5th).   Sadly they had to drop out of the league at the end of the 2008/9 season.