The last week of the season was a little disappointing for the Lemmings as they had been due to play The Wharf who were still unable to get a team together.
However, being creatures of habit the Lemmings gathered in the
Waters Green Tavern as they have done every Tuesday throughout the season and over a glass or two of the wonderful real ales and cider looked back on a season that all agreed was most enjoyable – perhaps the best.
Whilst guaranteed of promotion, it had not been an easy ride and in the four games that were lost none had been a close thing; the first defeat was to the Park Taverners who won by 25 points; but this was small beer compared to the Robin Hood game who left the Lemmings trailing with a difference of 80! Next came the Nags Head with a creditable difference of 35 followed closely by the Plough Horntails with 29. All games played with good humour and victory well deserved. The Lemmings’ victories on the other hand were usually by a few points.
A new feature had been introduced this year with the Nine-Banded Armadillo tro
Finally the Lemmings will be celebrating their promotion on 11th July with a party at Nick’s – there will be wine and real ale, authentic Indian food, musicians, singing and laughter – this will provide an opportunity to say farewell and good luck to old friends, and to socialise with the A League teams. Any teams/individuals interested please contact Nick and full details will be sent out later.
Thanks all for a great season
5 comments:
Many thanks for your weekly blog, Nick.
It is an eagerly awaited oasis of level-headed sanity in the quiz world.
With Nick forced out of match action, I thought I would aim for parody (albeit rather long). “The Robin rolled down the hill from Rainow for the final time this season to the furthest outpost of the B league, the Cock in Henbury. The Lemmings had lain down the gauntlet less forcefully than they may have wished last week as we needed (assuming that Mark will not be performing Duckworth-Lewis style pyrotechnics to mitigate "mit-eugh-gayte" the Wharf-effect) the princely total of 2 points to secure the title. Meanwhile, Jim Kennelly was sitting pretty at the top of the individual polymath league so silverware was on our minds.
The Cock is a welcoming Robinson’s house with a “cordoned off” quiz zone – no ladies’ darts or Sky TV to battle with here, serving a choice of three ales with the author settling upon the Mojo – a quaffable and hoppy session beer. However, for the merry-men (and lady) there was some trepidation – four of our six worst ever team scores have come against the Cock A2, with the worst of all at the same venue against the Cock Inn. The Cock are also the only team to breach fortress-Rainow this year. They limbered up cheerfully, and were keen to offer best wishes for the A league, laced with the wisdom of the battle-scarred. Neil (British Flag), a man who knows more than most about the limbo between the divisions was asking the questions and off we set.
The authors of the questions were a second source of unease as the Weaver had a formidable difficulty score last year, although the loosener of the Preston bypass suggested a benevolent turn and the 2 points were achieved at the first possible opportunity. The specialists passed nip and tuck and both teams rewarded generously as the Robin reached the interval in arrears, though by only a single point.
The General Knowledge opened with a seismic shift – the first two rounds saw the Robin run up a double-figure lead as the Cock ran into a series of questions not to their taste. We picked up four pass-overs during this period, suggesting that the questions “fell wrong” rather than were impossible. Normal service quickly resumed and the rest of the contest was evenly matched, ending 137 -125. Jim had a relatively quiet night at the office, but did enough. The questions seemed fairly distributed and at a reasonable level of difficulty – although anyone dedicated/sad enough to time scour past questions will know that the Weaver had recycled a few of their own, this might explain the occurrence of one pb! Some very strange prescience had given us McCoy’s winner’s total, prescience that had escaped the question-setters when asking for the nationality of the manager of Sunderland. Tony Fogarty stepped manfully into the Langstaff-role, suggesting that Advocaat didn’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of keeping them up. The band responsible for the South Park theme was the best last-minute bid for the armadillo award.
Job done, we feasted on a sumptuous banquet of sandwiches, corned beef a welcome surprise addition for the old-skool amongst us before triumphantly depositing the sheet in the multi-coloured wallet and setting off for the quizzing equivalent of a summer’s altitude training. So, farewell, for now, to the B league – we look forward to renewing acquaintances in the not too far off future and, Lemmings, like Harry and Cedric in the Goblet of Fire, we touch the portkey to the great unknown (sorry for the lowbrow reference), in the knowledge that at least one of us will be annihilated at great speed. For inspiration, I will turn to the late Tony Greig – “we intend to make them grovel” – failing to take into account the parched earth of the summer of ‘76 and the fearsome quartet of West Indian giants waiting around the corner (for any cricket aficionados – a word I couldn’t spell until Tuesday – who were the four West Indian leading wicket-takers that series? – I was most surprised by two).
See you at finals night, where, in the style of Paddy McGuinness, “Let the kalong meet the armadillo”.
Thank you both, especially Alan for his weekly updates - love it
Looking forward to seeing both the Lemmings and the Robin Hood in the A League next year.
Hi Nick,
Really enjoy reading your blog and the challenging myself on the questions. I am a regular at my local pub quizzes in Newcastle so need to swot up!
Kind regards,
Stu
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