Macclesfield Quiz League |
News & Views |
2018–19 Season |
Week 5 |
A League |
B League |
C League |
Cars & Vans 4U Trophy |
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By Haydn Thompson, with input from Mark Watson.
There were two very close results this week in the B League, where the Waters Green Lemmings beat the Park Taverners by 149 points to 146 and the Nags Head beat the Rushton Diamonds by 153 points to 148. Just as close was the C League match at the Pack Horse Bowling Club, where the Brewers Arms lost by 127 points to 132.
The Rushton Diamonds' defeat was their first of the season, and it left the Harrington Academicals two points clear at the top of the B League. In the A League the Dolphin are the only team with a 100% record, but they are currently one point behind the Ox–fford who have played one more game, winning three and drawing one. Meanwhile in the C League, there is a slightly artificial position whereby four teams have played five games and four have played only three. The Chester Road Tavern currently top the table with eight points, but both the Robin Hood and the Sutton Club are only two points behind and have two games in hand.
Mark Watson was once again the star performer, scoring a mighty 57 points. Mark went second on the team that went "second first" – answering questions 4 in the Specialists and 3, 11, 19 etc. in the General Knowledge. The one he didn't get was the one about the coffee balalaika; having never heard of it and faced with three hands on the table, each with five fingers extended, he conferred. No doubt if this had been his 18th or 19th question, instead of his 4th, he'd have gone for it anyway!
The last score of 57 was exactly two years ago: Season 2016–17, Week 5, by Alan Hodgson. The last one before that was just three weeks (including a Cup round) earlier: Season 2016–17, Week 3, by ... Mark Watson.
There were 24 personal bests this week: nine in the A League, 8 in the B and 7 in the C. Second highest score in the A League was Alice Walker's 54, while there were three 45s in the B League (Art Higham, Dave Partington and Jon Thompson) and the highest score in the C League was 36 for Tony Moores.
Some people have commented in Nick's blog on individual questions. The ones about Luis Suarez and the most eaten fruit were singled out for being somewhat obscure, while the one about the "rodent–like piece of computer hardware" maybe erred in the opposite direction. No one got a 3 for answering Norwich City (although at least one team apparently scored 1 on conferral); but congratulations to Keith Pointon and Paul Prior for getting the banana question right!
Ox–fford 'C' | 189 | 141 | Dolphin Dragons |
Alice Walker (pb) Haydn Thompson (pb) Tim Massey (pb) |
54 48 33 |
36 33 24 |
Liz Horrocks Dave Cooper (pb) Mike Ockleton (pb) |
Church House Bollington | 168 | 139 | Waters Green Rams |
Ashton Davies Ed Baron John Hargreaves (pb) |
42 33 30 |
45 | Keith Pointon (pb) |
Weaver | 160 | 176 | Ox–fford |
Graham Bailey (pb) | 48 | 57 | Mark Watson (pb) |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Ox–fford | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 680 | 7 |
Dolphin | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 487 | 6 |
Ox–fford 'C' | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 700 | 5 |
Weaver | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 667 | 4 |
Church House Bollington | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 637 | 4 |
Royal Oak | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 627 | 4 |
Dolphin Dragons | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 557 | 0 |
Waters Green Rams | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 470 | 0 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 5 | |
Mark Watson | Ox–fford | 4 | 213 | 57 | 51 | 57 |
Alice Walker | Ox–fford 'C' | 4 | 198 | 54 | 45 | 54 |
Haydn Thompson | Ox–fford 'C' | 4 | 177 | 48 | 39 | 48 |
Ashton Davies | Church House Bollington | 4 | 174 | 45 | 42 | 42 |
Ed Baron | Church House Bollington | 4 | 150 | 45 | 33 | 33 |
Paul Morrissey | Ox–fford | 4 | 144 | 45 | 27 | 36 |
Rosalie James | Royal Oak | 4 | 141 | 45 | 27 | |
Alan Hodgson | Dolphin | 3 | 138 | 48 | 42 | |
Alan Gilday | Weaver | 4 | 138 | 42 | 27 | 27 |
Alan James | Royal Oak | 4 | 129 | 39 | 30 | |
Liz Horrocks | Dolphin Dragons | 4 | 129 | 39 | 24 | 36 |
Waters Green Lemmings | 149 | 146 | Park Taverners |
Jon Thompson (pb) Bob Langstaff (pb) Nick Peck (pb) |
45 36 21 |
39 | Graham Wallace |
Plough Horntails | 125 | 162 | Harrington Academicals |
Malcolm Asquith (pb) | 33 | 45 | Dave Partington (pb) |
Rushton Diamonds | 148 | 153 | Nags Head |
Art Higham (pb) | 45 | 33 30 30 |
Andrew Wright (pb) Paul Prior (pb) Alasdair Reid |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Harrington Academicals | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 670 | 8 |
Rushton Diamonds | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 599 | 6 |
British Flag | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 596 | 4 |
Nags Head | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 455 | 4 |
Park Taverners | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 554 | 2 |
Plough Horntails | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 541 | 2 |
Waters Green Lemmings | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 629 | 2 |
Sutton Mutton | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 399 | 2 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 5 | |
Dave Partington | Harrington Academicals | 4 | 168 | 45 | 39 | 45 |
Brian Bogie | Rushton Diamonds | 4 | 153 | 42 | 36 | 36 |
Rob Parkin | Harrington Academicals | 4 | 144 | 42 | 33 | 36 |
Art Higham | Rushton Diamonds | 4 | 135 | 45 | 27 | 45 |
Bob Langstaff | Waters Green Lemmings | 4 | 132 | 36 | 27 | 36 |
Jon Thompson | Waters Green Lemmings | 4 | 129 | 45 | 24 | 45 |
Graham Wallace | Park Taverners | 3 | 120 | 45 | 36 | 39 |
Stuart Mills | Harrington Academicals | 4 | 120 | 36 | 21 | 21 |
Phil Davies | British Flag | 3 | 117 | 48 | 33 | |
Anne Jeater | Plough Horntails | 4 | 117 | 36 | 24 | 24 |
Pack Horse Bowling Club | 132 | 127 | Brewers Arms |
Reg Bloor (pb) Andrew Vickerstaff |
27 27 |
30 30 |
Trisha Ridgway (pb) Tim Hayes (pb) |
Harrington 'B' | 124 | 156 | Chester Road Tavern |
John Green Martin Biss Tom Aindow (pb) |
33 30 21 |
36 33 30 |
Tony Moores (pb) Steve Moores (pb) Mitch Moores (pb) |
Park Timers | 121 | 133 | Robin Hood |
John Poyser Glyn Bradley |
24 24 |
27 | Phil Moss |
Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Total | Points | |
Chester Road Tavern | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 678 | 8 |
Park Timers | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 661 | 6 |
Robin Hood | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 450 | 6 |
Sutton Club | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 417 | 6 |
Harrington 'B' | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 649 | 4 |
Pack Horse Bowling Club | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 580 | 2 |
Cock Inn | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 362 | 0 |
Brewers Arms | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 354 | 0 |
Team | Played | Total | Highest | Lowest | Week 5 | |
John Green | Harrington 'B' | 5 | 171 | 39 | 30 | 33 |
Andrew Fenton | Park Timers | 5 | 135 | 36 | 21 | 21 |
Glyn Bradley | Park Timers | 4 | 123 | 39 | 24 | 24 |
Andrew Vickerstaff | Pack Horse Bowling Club | 5 | 120 | 30 | 18 | 27 |
John Poyser | Park Timers | 4 | 114 | 36 | 21 | 24 |
Tim Bloor | Pack Horse Bowling Club | 5 | 114 | 33 | 12 | 21 |
Mitch Moores | Chester Road Tavern | 4 | 111 | 30 | 27 | 30 |
Jim Moores | Chester Road Tavern | 3 | 102 | 39 | 27 | |
Geoff Parkin | Harrington 'B' | 4 | 96 | 36 | 12 | 12 |
Wendy Brown | Sutton Club | 5 | 93 | 33 | 27 |
Week | Setters | Difficulty | Balance | Ent'ment | Total | Last Yr | ||
1 | 1 | Spec | Ox–fford | 9.47 | 7.66 | 7.17 | 24.30 | 24.69 |
2 | 1 | GK | Ox–fford | 7.68 | 9.08 | 7.22 | 23.97 | 17.22 |
3 | 5 | GK | Sutton Club | 6.49 | 8.60 | 6.33 | 21.42 | 19.98 |
4 | 2 | GK | Dolphin Dragons | 5.15 | 8.89 | 6.22 | 20.26 | 17.65 |
5 | 3 | GK | Plough Horntails | 5.07 | 9.32 | 5.51 | 19.90 | 8.76 |
6 | 4 | Spec | Waters Green Rams | 4.52 | 9.89 | 5.39 | 19.80 | |
7 | 2 | Spec | Dolphin Dragons | 6.10 | 6.83 | 6.22 | 19.16 | 20.42 |
8 | 3 | Spec | Plough Horntails | 3.64 | 9.47 | 5.76 | 18.86 | |
9 | 5 | Spec | British Flag | 6.04 | 5.56 | 6.72 | 18.32 | 24.61 |
10 | 4 | GK | Waters Green Rams | 6.35 | 0.89 | 5.22 | 12.46 | 18.84 |
This week's questions reversed the trend of falling Entertainment scores, and are currently ranked third (GK) and fourth (Specialist) in that respect. Both sets were also slightly easier than average, earning good scores for Difficulty. On Balance, the Sutton Club's General Knowledge set scored well and the British Flag's Specialist questions earned a perfectly respectable score.
Overall, the teams that went "first first" scored 106% of their average scores, while those that went "second first" scored 109%. This would mean a difference of a fraction over four points on an average team score of 137. In other words, if you went "first first" and lost by four points or less*, you can maybe consider yourselves unlucky. As it happens, in each of the three closest games this week (mentioned at the top of this page), the losing teams went "first second" – so (according to the spreadsheet) the questions were not to blame!
The Flag's position of ninth out of ten so far this season doesn't look great at first sight, but their total score is (like that for Balance) perfectly respectable and would have put them in ninth place last season. This speaks well for the standard of questions this season – if you agree with the criteria on which they're judged by the spreadsheet – and if this trend continues then I think we can all give ourselves a pat on the back.
* or fewer, if you prefer.
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2018