24th January Away to the Plough

 Great to see the Plough has emerged from lockdown unscathed  - friendly familiar faces.

A very pleasant evening with a pretty good set of questions. At the end of the Specialist Ian had got a full house and the visitors were leading 78 to 52; General Knowledge went to the WGN 79 to 61 final score 157 to 113

Individual scores Paul 18/15, Sunil 12/9 Nicik 9/3 Ian 24/18 conferred 8/21 pass-overs 7/13 and the home team collected 1/5 pass-overs.

The evening was rounded off with a fine curry with a choice of rice or chips - many thanks to the landlord, to the question master from the Chester Road Tavern and to the home team for a most enjoyable game.

17th January Cup game away at The Dolphin

 

The Dolphin is a very friendly Robinsons pub in an interesting part of the town sitting on Windmill St halfway up the valley wall towards the Hollins hills well known for the quality of its beers.. Neighbouring streets give clues to the area's industrial activity - Charles Roe set up a copper smelting factory (much of the ore coming from Alderley Edge) and used a windmill to grind the ore - other clues are Copper St and Calamine St used to process zinc.

Opposite the pub stands a large play area where the big top used to be assembled when the circus hit town and Nick remembers seeing a demonstration of horsemanship by Cossacks in the early fifties. Nick's Dad used to work in the foundry that once stood behind the pub and wore wooden clogs as splashes of molten metal burned right through leather easily. Nick and his brother also wore wooden clogs with a steel hoop on the sole - when they got too small Dad would take them across the playing field to a cobbler who would dig out a bit more of the insides so they would fit again - the comedian Charlie Williams sometimes included in his sketch skidding the floor in clogs so the metal hoop would strike sparks, just as we used to do.

It may be that the pub was built to house the navvies digging the Macclesfield just up the road.

The Dolphin Hatters (recently changed name following the tragic death of a team member) are sitting proudly at the top of the League table not having lost a game yet and although the visitors are second they knew this would be a toughie as the home team contains a Mastermind winner.

The questions were a bit of a mixed bag, perhaps too much sport, a reasonable mix of pop and classical music, some obscure geography - and the WGN felt they had made a wrong call at the start of the game as there seemed to be some imbalance in the questions.

The question master zipped quickly through the questions as the snow had started to fall and all wanted to get home - he did a good job.

Scores for each round were (home team first) 22/14, 19/18, 21/18, 20/14, 16/19 and 14/17 final score 120 to 100. A very pleasant game rounded off with a very tasty selection of sandwiches and a huge tureen of hot soup with bread Many thanks to the landlady, to the Hatters (good luck for the rest of the competition) and to the question master.

3rd January Home to the Park Taverners

 

The Park Taverners have been friendly opponents over many years and have become good friends - it was good to see them again.

We quite liked the questions, ideally if you were a Welsh speaking music lover, 

the rounds ending with the WGN having a slight lead with 68 to 62 and a similar result in the General Knowledge with 87 to 80 mainly thanks to strong performances by Paul and Ian. 

Individual scores were Paul 21/21 Nick 9/9 Sunil 6/15 Ian 18/15 with conferred 9/16, passed over 5/8 while the visitors picked up 5/8 pass-overs.

We very rarely give away pass-overs as we're extremely good at conferring but Nick confusing Russian and American space shots worked against us. Final score 155 to 142.

It was a very pleasant game with lots of laughter rounded off with a splendid selection of sandwiches from Brian - many thanks Brian, to the visitors and to David the question master from the Dolphin Hammers.