"He's not going to start coming here, is he?"

My son Mike played in a quiz in Coity in Bridgend last Tuesday. His team came second, and he told me that when they had a chat with the team who won, my name reared its ugly head. I’m not exactly sure how – but it did, and the other team’s reaction was words to the effect of ‘Oh God, he’s not going to start coming here, is he?” According to Mike they calmed down a bit and seemed mollified when Mike told them that I hadn’t been invited, and even if I had I probably wouldn’t come because I only go to one quiz anymore, and I’d only started going back to that one recently. Mike reckoned that they’d been part of the Bridgend Quiz League during the years I’d played from 2010-16. Their argument went something like this – “This is just a nice friendly quiz, and nobody takes it that seriously.” Then it went something like this – “If he came we’d never have a chance of winning.” Honestly, I’m not making this up or embellishing it to big myself up, this is what they actually said.

You know, I have a nasty little metaphorical quiz devil that pops up on my shoulder sometimes and whispers suggestions in my ear. Nowadays I rarely listen to it, but there was a time when, If I’d been told something like this, then I would have made a point of going to the quiz the next time it was on. Yes, I’d have justified it to myself with the observation that there was a disconnect between their two statements and that if nobody takes it that seriously then you wouldn’t care if you don’t win. There was a time when I’d have said that if winning matters that much to you, then start learning stuff, make yourself a better player and increase your chances that way, rather than just hoping that a better team never turn up. But that was then. Now, I can honestly say that I hope they enjoy the quiz, and I promise that I won’t be there.

I understand the desire to win, believe me, I do really understand that. I don’t recall ever entering a quiz without wanting to win. Yes, many times I’ve entered a quiz feeling it’s unlikely that I’m going to win, and many times this feeling has been correct. But I’ve still wanted to win. So I do know how frustrating it can be when situations change, and you find you’re no longer the strongest team in a particular quiz. I remember several years ago in a Sunday evening quiz in Bryncoch. John and I were the strongest team for several years, then another friend of mine, Rob, a Brain of Britain runner up started coming with quite a larger team. He’s a great quizzer anyway, and the rest of his team were no slouches. They were too strong for me and John. Still we didn’t stop going, in fact the only reason we stopped going a year or two later was when the new landlord changed it form a pure quiz, to a Family Fortunes style guessing game. I can stand going to a quiz I’m likely to lose. I can’t stand going to a quiz which is just a guessing game, though, and not a very interesting one at that.

A similar thing happened in the rugby club. When I started the quiz would usually be a contest between my team, and the team containing my dear friends John and Alan. When I started we would win 2 or 3 quizzes out of every 10, and they’d win the rest. As I got better as a quizzer, largely through becoming a regular question setter, we matched them, and then started to win more than they did. Rob joined their team, and we had some cracking matches. Alan got ill, John stopped coming, and we had a period of dominance. It didn’t stop Rob coming. Eventually some strong players joined Rob and Claire, and our team started to weaken as we lost players to illness, or just stopping coming. Eventually it was just myself and long standing team member George, against a very good and strong Rob’s team. I didn’t stop coming. Well, not until about 6 months before lockdown.

I’ve just realised that I don’t really know where I’m going with this post. But I guess the point is that I’d like to think that I’m sufficiently mature now that I’d still want to keep going to the quiz on the Thursday nights even if we didn’t win another quiz before Christmas.