Home to The Lamb

It was good to welcome The Lamb following their excellent season and promotion last year. Familiar faces that it is good to see again. and as ever the game was played with a light heart and much laughter. We were fortunate that Marshall was able to tear himself away from his new responsibilities as acting landlord at The Lamb and we hope all outstanding problems will soon be sorted out.
The night’s questions had all been set by The Dolphin and were of a very high standard indeed; however, the Phoenix have come to realise that their tactics must now take into consideration Nick’s cock-ups that take place every week and not his originally allocated one per season. The night’s gaffe came in the picture round that consisted of details of well-known paintings with the name of the artist required; despite Wendy’s desperate efforts to turn the picture the right way round, Nick insisted on looking at it upside-down thus transforming Turner’s Fighting Temeraire to Monet’s Impression Sunrise and gifting a point to The Lamb and reducing the Phoenix to silent incredulity. The evening had started badly anyway – the Phoenix were lucky to have Wendy playing as she had had an operation on her shoulder only a few days earlier and her arm was in a sling – Nick’s welcoming hug was not only painful but ran the risk of reopening the wound!
Each of the Specialist rounds was out of the ordinary and thus refreshing and challenging with the teams closely matched, and it was something of a surprise to find that the Phoenix had edged to a 10 point lead with 59 to 49. The Lamb came fighting back in the equally stimulating General Knowledge round and clawed back much of the lead with the result depending on the last couple of questions.
Individual scores were Bob 12/12, Wendy 15/21, Nick 12/18 and Tomo 9/12; conferred points were 8/13 and passovers very low at 3/7. The Lamb picked up 5/7 passovers and showed remarkable team work with 11/25 conferred points. Final score victory to The Phoenix with 142 to 137.
A great evening, a close contest rounded off with a huge selection of refreshments of which special mention must be made of the pork and pickle pies – thank you Brian and Tracey.