Last Game of the Season 28th April

Duncan Disorderley writes: 

As blogmeister extraordinaire Nick is on holiday in Spain he has asked me to make a special guest appearance to write about the final night of the 2008/09 season, even though I officially retired from being a famous celebrity ages ago. I have been trying to keep a low profile to avoid certain people to whom I owe money (Nick has promised me that this will be a paid job).  I have tried hard to find a good job with plenty of brass to keep the credit crunch at bay and to keep certain people away from my door. All the jobs have turned out disastrously. I applied for a job at the new East Cheshire Council and they offered me what they said was a prize job with no less than two thousand men under me!  I was over the moon until they told me I would be cutting the grass in the local cemetery.  The last job I tried was a disaster. It was as an entertainments officer in a nudist camp. They asked me to organise their Sports Day which I did. Things went very well at first, especially the nude sack race using transparent polythene sacks. The trouble came when I started the men’s nude 4 x 400 baton relay race. It was pandemonium at the second baton change. One poor chap was dragged 200 yards before we found out what the problem was. 

Anyway enough of my problems. The last match of a good season was played against the Puss Artists. The redoubtable Steve Berwick, of whom Magnus Magnusson once said “Who?!” was standing in for Nick. Right from the word go there was a definite ‘end of term’ flavour about the night, tolerated – even encouraged by the excellent quiz master Mike Vickerstaffe.  I do like a quiz with a laugh and a joke and the B League is certainly the place for that. The specialist rounds were tough, but with some interesting questions. In an entertaining round called Location, Location!, on famous addresses we were asked who was the Downing of Downing street fame? Even though it disappointingly turned out to be just the landlord it was nevertheless one of those questions that you didn’t know the answer to but probably should.  The scores at the end of the specialist round were close – 45 to the Artists, 49 to the Phoenix.   

The General Knowledge rounds undoubtedly favoured the Waters Green team, who pulled away about a third of the way through and eventually won  121 to 63, with a final match score of Waters Green Phoenix 170; Puss Artists 108.  

So a good season came to a very entertaining end. Time now to thank the organisers, particularly the indefatigable and always cheerful Mark Watson for his Herculean task (and also congratulation to him on his team’s winning of the A League and his own personal scoring feats!).  

For the Waters Green Tavern – another excellent and enjoyable year. Many many thanks to Nick for the blog and the wisdom of age; substitutes Ra, Steve, Tony and Eric and in particular to Rosie, our official mascot.  Thanks to Tracey and Brian and all at the WGT. 

See you next year. 

FINAL STATISTICS FOR GAME 

Tommo 36

Wendy 21

Steve 27

Bob 33

21 April

The penultimate game of the season against old friends the George and Dragon playing on their home ground in Higher Hurdsfield.

The pub had two real ales on, Bombardier that is the regular offering plus one from the newly established Wincle Brewery that are all named after local characters.

As always with the G&D this was a lively and good-humoured quiz despite Nick's rather questionable poem on the origins of the camel's hump and and the sphinx' smile.

The evening was rounded off with a generous tray of sausage and toasted baguettes for which we were very grateful.

Individual scores were Bob 15/18, Wendy 6/12, Nick 3/12 and Tomo 12/9, Conferred points were 11/13, Passed over 8/11 whilst the G&D picked up 3/7 passovers - final scores George & Dragon 86 Waters Green Phoenix 130

Apologies

Sorry about this but I've been getting left behind recently - am away now for a couple of weeks but on my return will publishthe semi-final questions, subsequent questions and comments on last weeks' game - in the meantime Church House Bollington have been kind enought to supply last week's GK questons that have been published as normal

Semi Finals

What a night this was to be!! Manchester United playing Porto, Arsenal playing Villareal and the semi-finals in the Macclesfield Pub Quiz League Cup and Plate knock-out competitions including the mighty Phoenix against the Oxford C (highly placed in the A League) with the formidable Alice Walker (formidable only in the extent of her knowledge, as she is a charming and fun-loving player); and Haydn who is high in the competition for the individual placings in the A League.

The evening started with a surprise - the Phoenix were following the tradition of gathering at the Waters Green Tavern for a talk on tactics lubricated with some of Brian's finest ales before moving on to the venue (the Ox Fford) when in walked Alice!! There had been a mix-up at the Ox Fford and what with the football and crib and what have you the quiz could not take place there.

A hurried consultation with Brian quickly resolved the situation and the venue was changed to the Phoenix home ground - many thanks Brian. But obviously there would be no butties. There was some delay whilst the rest of the Oxford team were gathered and shepherded to the Tavern along with the question master who had not long since left with the questions. The Phoenix tried to take avantage of the situation by claiming a 40 point penalty for the inconvenience, late start and anything else we could think of but it was quickly rebuffed, despite Tomo passing the time amazing Alice with his conjuring and mind-reading skills.

 

The knock-out competitions take the form of 6 rounds of 10 questions to each team and the Phoenix fought hard narrowly losing the first two rounds 17/14 and 20/14 and even drawing in the third at 16 each. Whether the questions then changed, or the lubrication took effect is difficult to say but the next rounds went to the Oxford 19/11, 16/8 and 23/10 the game finishing at 111/73 to the Oxford. So the Phoenix would only just have won if they had been given the 40 penalty points!!

No complaints about the questions or the balance - the Oxford were the better team and it showed on the night.

So to sum up the night: United lost the lead with a last minute goal from an unmarked Lisandro after a lacklustre display, Arsenal also drew with a spectacular overhead kick from Adebayor and the Phoenix came away second.

But the night was not yet over! A huge tray of chips appeared with a plentiful supply of baps - Brian had arranged it with Tel of the Waters Green Chippy!! Many thanks fo Brian and Tel.

So we now look forward to next year's knock-out competition, and wish the Oxford C every success in the semi-final.

Garrotted By The Knot

 

This was the return match against The Knot, currently jostling with the Puss Heads for the number 1 spot in the League (awaiting formal results).

The Phoenix were without their top-scoring member Bob but were confident of victory by calling on their mascot Rosie. Sadly Rosie was out for walkies, and we had to call on our second-string mascot Rah, Nick’s son.

The Knot on the other hand demonstrated their strength in depth by allowing Brian (who did so well in Mastermind recently) to help the question-master with the scoring and to take no part in the team.

The specialist rounds had some out-of-the-ordinary questions, in particular a spelling bee that was a severe test of memory without a spellchecker to help! It was a keenly fought contest and at the end of the specialist rounds it was level pegging at 42 each. The General Knowledge were equally challenging and it was here that The Knot’s strengths were brought to the fore as they strode ahead to beat us by over 30 points (see link at right for the questions). This is brought into even higher relief by the number of pass-over points they picked up (see below).

Individual points were: 

Rah 3/0, Wendy 6/9, Nick 12/9 and Tomo 6/9; conferred points were 10/15 with 5/6 pass-overs. The knot on the other hand gathered 6/18 pass-overs!!! Final score was 90 for the Phoenix to 122 for The Knot.

Rah’s score is not an accurate reflection of his contribution – as a beginner in the quiz he was rather over-cautious on his own questions but was extremely useful in all the conferred discussions. We look forward to his participation again in the future. 

Well done to the Knot – worthy winners in a good-humoured game and we wish them well in the title race.

The evening was rounded off with a fine selection of sandwiches – thank you Brian and Tracey. We do not blame the excellent selection of beers for the defeat although it was the Phoenix drinking the Easy Rider, whilst The Knot acted it out.