13th December–half way

 

This game marked the half-way point in the season and brought together the two teams from the Waters Green Tavern. The Rams had again to draw on their rich pool of reserves to make up the team.

Interestingly the same evening saw a team from the Bull’s Head at Broken Cross defeat the Eggheads and the previous week (episode 28) a team from the Bollington Brass Band took them to a close run sudden death although they lost. And yet not one of either team looked the slightest bit familiar.

Both teams felt that the Specialist questions relied more on trivia than knowledge and this is reflected in the individual scores. No questions however qualified for the Nine Banded Armadillo award. Nevertheless the Rams took the honours with 50 points to the Lemmings’ 38. Mike Vickerstaff patiently suffered as question master and deserves a special mention.

The general knowledge were more serious and the Rams thrashed the Lemmings with 108 to 87 leaving a final score of 158 to 124.

Individual scores were Bob 9/15, Matt 9/24, Nick 0/9 and Tomo 6/18; conferred points were 10/11 with 4/10 pass-overs while the Rams collected 6/10 pass-overs.

Brian then provided an excellent cheese board while the Lemmings licked their wounds – many thanks to Brian, to QM Dave, and to the Rams for a thrashing. On to the next half!!

6th December–Away to the Park Taverners

 

Always a pleasure to meet up with these old friends and this was no exception – moreover the occasion was heightened by it being Pete’s birthday (although it did bring back memories of his birthday five years ago when his team mates splashed out on champagne and left the Lemmings decidedly worse for wear).

The Park Tavern is a very friendly pub, with helpful staff and a wide selection of (mainly Bollington Brewery)  ales ranging from Long Hop at 3.9% to the very desirable (except on quiz night) Eastern Nights IPA at 5.6%.

As usual it was a joyous game- even the fact that the Sports questions round had been left off the pack for the question master was speedily resolved by using up supplementaries from earlier rounds. But then there were sufficient sports questions over the course of the game that more than made up for a dedicated round (at least 9 in the General Knowledge!).

A lot of thought had gone into the Specialist questions, the three “free” rounds being quite different – and they deserved extra points for the very attractive diagram of yoked oxen – but they didn’t get any! The General Knowledge let themselves down with too many sport questions but were otherwise OK. There were calls for Q53 (Phillip Green’s superyacht) to be entered into the Armadillo competition but in fact it was all over the papers having cost a modest £100,000,000 built to his wife’s designs.

At the end of the Specialist questions the Lemmings had managed a healthy lead thanks in no small part to Tomo – he always scores well but this week scored a full house in the Specialist; this helped give the Lemmings a lead of 72 to 56. The General Knowledge also played to the Lemmings’ interests as they maintained their lead with 88 to 55 giving a final score of 160 to 111.

Individual scores were Bob 15/9, Matt 12/18, Nick 12/12 and Tomo 24/21; conferred points were 5/8, pass-overs 4/3 while the home team collected 4/4 pass-overs.

The pub then presented us with a splendid selection of cheese and grapes supplemented by a delicious chocolate birthday cake for Pete created by Heather. Thank you Heather, the Park Tavern, Grenville for his easy-going control of the game as question master and as always the Park Taverners for a most enjoyable evening.

29th November–Home to the British Flag

 

In some respects the visitors are rather like the Lemmings, bobbing between the B League to the A League and back again the following season so we knew that to keep our hopes of promotion alive we would need to win this game.To ensure there would be no distractions the Flag asked that the radio/juke box be turned off so  the game started in an atmosphere of calm and serenity - almost monastic!!

After the first couple of specialist rounds, the Lemmings had built up a substantial lead of 11 points and began to feel confident – but then it all changed!!! Not only did the Flag have two very successful rounds but the peace and tranquillity vanished with waves of sound signalling the arrival of the ladies darts teams.

The question master Dave from the Nags Head managed to cope with the noise and valiantly persevered but at the end of the Specialist the Lemmings were trailing 67 to 55. There was nothing wrong with the questions (in fact only 2 were not answered by either side) and the balance was fine- interestingly Bob, Tomo and Nick all scored 9 whilst Matt broke the mould with a crushing 12.

After a beer break in which the Salopian and Newby Wyke took something of a bashing the Lemmings returned to the fray, bravely overcoming the chilling war cries from the darts area and working with much discipline managed to win the general knowledge with 90 to 83. Unfortunately this still left a deficit of 5 and the visitors wore the victor’s crown.

Dave the question master did a valiant job but a separate timekeeper would have been able to keep a firmer grip on the game.

Individual scores were Bob 9/15, Matt 12/24, Nick 9/6 and Tomo 9/18; conferred points were 14/16 with 2/11 pass-overs – the visitors picked up 5/6 pass-overs.

Brian then appeared with a magnificent supper of burgers, onions, chips and bread for a spectacular finish – many thanks Brian, Dave and the Flag for a most enjoyable evening.