Mastermind 2022 Grand Final Preview

Right, I suppose you want me to tell you who is going to win the Grand Final. Well, there’s a couple of ways that we can try to do this. We could start by looking at the statistics.

	Name	Subject	SS	pass	GK	pass	Total	pass
R1	Patrick Buckingham	Francis I of France	13	0	14	0	27	0
SF	Patrick Buckingham	Jean Harlow	13	0	13	0	26	0
Average			13	0	13.5	0	26.5	0
R1	Sarah Trevarthen	Rocky Horror	13	0	15	0	28	0
SF	Sarah Trevarthen	Pulp	13	0	10	0	23	0 (tie break)
Average			13	0	12.5	0	25.5	0
R1	Anthony Fish	Alfred Hitchcock films of the 1950s	14	0	16	0	30	0
SF	Anthony Fish	20th century world heavyweight boxing championship fights	13	0	14	1	27	1
Average			13.5	0	15	0.5	28.5	0.5
R1	Eleanor Ayres	Catherine de Medici	9	0	12	0	21	0
SF	Eleanor Ayres	The History of York Minster	11	1	17	0	28	1
Average			10	0.5	14.5	0	24.5	0.5
R1	Alice Walker	Rodgers and Hammerstein Musicals	11	0	15	0	26	0
SF	Alice Walker	Julia Margaret Cameron	13	0	11	0	24	0 (tie break)
Average			12	0	13	0	25	0
R1	Ian Wang	The Music of Beyonce	12	0	12	0	24	0
SF	Ian Wang	The Films of Studio Ghibli	15	0	11	0	26	0
Average			13.5	0	11.5	0	25	0

Taking a purely statistical approach, if we go by the average scores for both the 1^st round and semi final of each contender, then that predicts the podium places are most likely to go to Anthony Fish, Patrick Buckingham and Sarah Trevarthen. But that’s based on a very limited range of numbers, though. So I think that it would be appropriate to also take a qualitative approach, and examine each of our finalists in a little more detail. Working from Semi final 1 to Semi final 6. . .

Ian Wang

Ian’s semi final win was built on a superb specialist round. 15 is just about as good as it was possible to get in the semis. His 12 in the heats was good – certainly good enough – but in order to give himself any realistic chance he has to produce as close to a perfect specialist round as possible in the final. I say this because I don’t feel that his GK is quite good enough at this stage in his quiz career. He has the lowest average score on GK and I think he’ll need by far his best performance on GK to have a chance of winning. He may well do that, but I have to go on the evidence we’ve seen so far, and on my gut feeling. Prediction – potential podium but more likely not quite.

Alice Walker

Alice posted the 5^th highest score in the first-round heats. Looking at her stats, there’s an interesting inversion of her scores between the 1^st round and the semi-final. She scored 11 on specialist in the heat, then 13 in the semi, whereas she scored 15 on GK in the heat, but only 11 in the semi. This meant that she only won through after a tense tie break. I was very impressed with her GK in the heat, and much less impressed with it in the semi, which suggests that it could be all down to the question set that she receives on the day. Well, Mastermind isn’t always won by the most consistent performer. Having said that though I think she has less of a chance than some of the other finalists. Prediction – most likely outside the medals.

Eleanor Ayres

Eleanor has the lowest average score from the heats and semis. However, this is entirely due to her modest first round performance. Only 4 heat winners came through with a lower combined total. However, come the semi-final, she was a revelation. Her 28, built on the back of a monster total of 17 on GK, was the highest score of all of the semis. I’ll come to that. She worries me a little on specialist, having scored 9 in the heat and 11 in the semi. I’m pretty certain that she’ll need to improve on this to give herself a reasonable chance. As for GK, well 12 in the heats was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as that semi final performance. That showed that, if the questions fall the right way, Sarah is capable of setting an extremely high total. Likewise, if she gets an unhelpful set, then the opposite is possible. Prediction – you tell me. Anything could happen.

Anthony Fish

In terms of pure numbers, Anthony must be highly rated in any preview of the final. He top scored in the heats, being the only contender in the whole series so far to reach 30 points. Scores of 14 and 13 on very different specialist subjects suggests that his preparation will again be excellent. Scores of 16 and 14 on GK also show that he is one of the best of these contenders in General Knowledge. To be honest, he has shown so little in the way of weakness in this series that it’s very difficult to argue with the tale of the numbers here. Prediction – Potential champion.

Sarah Trevarthen

Sarah has had a Mastermind journey almost like an inverted image of Eleanor’s. She performed brilliantly in the heats, with the second highest score, 28. Yet she had the lowest winning score of any of the semis and had to endure a tie break to win her place in the final. We can be certain that she will prepare her specialist subject very well, in all likelihood well enough to be at least close to the leader at the turnaround. If she produces a GK round like the one she had in her heat, then she’s a potential champ. If she only produces a modest GK round of the sort she had in the semi-final, then she might not even find herself on the podium. Such are the variables we have to take into account when considering this grand final. Prediction potentially podium.

Patrick Buckingham

I feel far less uncertainty about Patrick, on paper at least. Like Anthony, Patrick appears to be a very consistent performer. With two scores of 13 on specialist we can be as sure as we can that he should be up near the head of the field when the half time oranges are brought out. A 14 and a 13 show a consistently good level of General Knowledge as well. I don’t see him scoring much less than this on the night in GK and potentially he could well have his highest GK score, which would put him right up there. Prediction: Potential champion, more likely silver medal.

--------------------------------------------

There it is then. I have no prior knowledge of the outcome and will be as interested as every other viewer to see how it will all turn out. Apologies to those I’ve tipped for success, so often the kiss of death to contenders.

University Challenge 2022 Grand Final: Imperial v. Reading

The Teams

Imperial

Max Zeng

Fatima Sheriff

Michael Mays (capt.)

Gilbert Jackson

Reading

Sylvian Jesudoss

Margaret Ounsley

Michael Hutchinson (capt.)

Kira Bishop

One match, two teams, and it all comes down to this, dearly beloved. I’m tempted to say let’s forget about the form book, but we can’t really. In my preview posted on Sunday I explained that I was tipping Imperial but could foresee circumstances in which Reading could win. It’s difficult to ignore Imperial’s commanding win over Reading in the quarters, but ignore it we must. JP reminded us that there are champions from past series who won by avenging a loss in the final.

Not that it looked likely to happen when superbuzzer Max Zeng won the race to identify Thucydides from JP’s question. A brace of bonuses on trees in English poetry followed. I didn’t think these were at all easy either. I had the Tennyson, but that was it. Reading struck back through superduperbuzzer Michael Hutchinson who knew the British winners of the Modern Pentathlon at the Tokyo Olympics. Modes in music promised me little – I managed a couple though. Reading took a full house, proving that they were not just here to make up the numbers. The point of the next question was the mathematical point, which Michael Mays knew. I awarded myself a lap of honour on the mathsy/science bonuses that followed for knowing ‘octave’. Last lap of honour of the series, so that’s my exercise for this year done till the next series starts in the summer. Bonuses took Imperial to 40, and we were arriving early at the picture starter. As soon as JP said it was going to be a map, I waited for the inevitable Max Zeng buzz. I wasn’t disappointed, as he identified the source of the river Niger. Three more Wetlands of International Importance followed – and for the first two captain Michael Mays didn’t bother asking, and just uttered the magic words – nominate Zeng. Yes, it was a full house. I visited Amsterdam a few years ago now, so I knew about the Badass Flag, and so did Gilbert Jackson. Bonuses on philosophy saw Imperial only able to add another 5 points to their score. Nonetheless, this meant that they lead by 80 to 25 at the ten-minute mark, and things were going according to the script.

The lead stretched further when Fatima Sheriff won the buzzer race to identify Atropine. New York Drag slang – not a subject I recall any previous UC questions about – passed Imperial by without troubling the scorer. I was a bit surprised that they missed voguing – too young possibly? Right. With Imperial 10 points away from triple figures, this was time for Reading to go off script and ad lib a bit. Michael Hutchinson mentally drew lines across the Periodic Table and came up with the shape of Pi. Mmm, pie. Sorry. Beatrice – or Tilly – Shilling was another illustrious member of the Who? family to be the subject of a set of bonuses, brought a timely full house. This brought us to the music starter. I can’t say that I’m really surprised that nobody recognised the opera “Nixon in China”. For the next starter, asking for a Scottish king, a son of Malcolm II ‘Canmore’, Margaret Ounsley chanced her arm too soon, allowing Michael Mays to eventually toss in a speculative David I, which much to his surprise turned out to be the right answer. This earned the very dubious reward of the bonuses on Nixon in China. Only the last one yielded points. Michael Hutchinson then made an extremely good buzz to identify Frantz Fanon. Bonuses on Carl ‘Who’ Woese brought them 1 correct answer, but at least kept the score moving and the gap narrowing. When I heard the next starter, referring to a Shakespeare play which mentioned carnival misrule I knew the answer, and thought that this looked very much like a Margaret Ounsley question. I was right. This brought Reading a set on nude portraits. I say, steady the buffs. (The in-the-buffs?) I didn’t have a Scooby about any of these and neither did Reading. Still, at the 20-minute mark Imperial’s lead had been reduced as they led by 10 – 70. And the go-forward was with Reading.

Michael Hutchinson knocked off 10 points knowing that the wife of the 2^nd president of the USA was Abigail Adams. The Kingdom of Prussia knocked another 10 points off, reducing the gap to 15. The next starter was another Margaret Ounsley one, as she was the first to recognise that the word sward is often paired with the adjective green. One bonus on Islamic scholars mentioned in The Canterbury Tales was needed to tie the scores, and another to take the lead. They took one, and the scores were tied. How long was left? Difficult to know considering that time had to be left for the presentation of the trophy. Nobody recognised the work of Yinka Shonibare for the second picture starter. That man Hutchinson took the next starter on a chap called Stokes. One of the picture bonuses took them to 120, and a 15 point lead. Another Geography question followed, and inevitably Max Zeng won the race to name the Brecon Beacons National Park. 2 bonuses on planned NASA space missions gave Imperial the narrowest possible lead of 5 points. How much time was left? Couldn’t be a lot. Nobody knew the carnivorous sundew plant for the next starter. Right, let me tell you that there was time for just one more question, although neither team could have known that. In order to win, Reading had to win the buzzer race, and had to get it right. Anything else would leave Imperial as winners. The thoroughly admirable Michael Hutchinson won the buzzer race. But. . . he got it wrong. We were gonged before the question was completed, with Imperial winning by 125 to 115.

Imperial were presented the trophy by Nobel prize winning scientist Sir Andre Geim. Judging by his achievements he’s probably been the subject of a UC question in the past – or will be in future. It was a fair result – they have been the strongest team through the series. But congratulations too to Reading, who must have given them the fright of their lives. I notice that Michael Hutchinson is now a teacher. I can’t help wondering if he will go in for Mastermind one day, and become the next teacher to win it?

Congratulations to both teams and thank you for the great entertainment you have given us. Thanks also to Jeremy Paxman. I can’t imagine that his condition makes it any easier to present the show, and we can be grateful that he chooses to continue doing so.

Interesting Fact That I Didn’t Already Know Of The Week

Maybe I was just concentrating on the show too much, but I’m sorry – nothing especially grabbed me last night.

Mastermind 2022: Semi Final 6

 

Patrick Buckingham	Francis I of France	13	0	14	0	27	0
Richard Aubrey	Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister	13	0	12	0	25	0
Marianne McKillop	Buffy The Vampire Slayer	10	0	10	0	20	0
Gary McKenzie	Harold Larwood	10	0	12	0	22	0

Well, dearly beloved, as we all know there is no seeding in Mastermind. However, if there were, and if it were based on first round heat performance, then our first and second seeds have already qualified for the Grand Final in earlier semi-finals. In tonight’s final semi-final, it was going to be interesting to see whether our unofficial number 3 seed, Patrick Buckingham, could join them.

As it worked out, Patrick was first into the chair tonight. Last time out he had 13 on Francis I of France. This time out he was answering on Jean Harlow. My favourite Jean Harlow story, possibly apocryphal, is that she once met Margot Asquith, and asked her “Isn’t your name pronounced Margott?” To which the acid-witted wife of the former Prime Minister replied, “No, the T is silent, as in Harlow”. It was on one of his early questions that Patrick had a really pronounced stumble, and I did wonder if this would unsettle him. No, in a word. He – and as a consequence Clive – got faster and faster as the round went on, and in the end he scored 13 again. Bearing in mind his GK performance in the heat, he was looking good value for the win.

That was premature, though, considering that we had 3 heat winners yet to play. Next to the chair was Gary McKenzie. Gary was offering us my favourite subject of the night. I’d scraped a couple of points on Jean Harlow but expected to do a lot better on Gary’s subject, the sitcom Porridge. And don’t get me wrong, I was perfectly happy with the 7 points I managed from this set. I’ve made this point before during this series, but I’m going to say it again, I do find that the sets of questions we get on films and TV shows do tend to concentrate almost exclusively on on-screen details and happenings, and don’t ask about interesting things to do with the production of the TV show or film. For example, Porridge actually started as a one off pilot in the Ronnie Barker showcase series Seven of One, and it might have been nice to have a question about this. I don’t blame Gary for this, and he did well with 11.

This was not the pick of the specialist rounds this evening, though. That distinction belonged to Marianne McKillop. Marianne scored 10 on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the first round heat. Tonight she outdid herself delivering a nigh perfect round on Alexander the Great (the Vampire Slayer) to score 14. This was quite an achievement considering the number of tongue twisting names she had to produce in answer to a lot of the questions. I may be wrong, but I believe that Marianne was the last teacher standing, er, sitting, in this year’s competition, and not just that, but an English teacher too, so I couldn’t help wondering if she could make it through to the final.

Well, before we could find that out, Richard Aubrey would have his specialist round. A previous semi-finalist, Richard had the benefit of having been this way before. I can only speak for myself, but I did find that it got easier to deal with being in the chair each time that I did it. Last time out Richard won his heat scoring a quality 13 on Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister. Tonight he was offering the World Snooker Championships from 1977 to the present day. There were a couple of more gentle ones – there had to be or I wouldn’t have picked up any of them – but there were also a lot of tough questions as well. In the end Richard added 10 to his score. It was good, but at 4 points off the lead it looked unlikely to be good enough.

This meant that Richard returned to the chair to kick off the GK round. He started it blooming well too, until about halfway through when one answer just refused to take flight from his tongue, and this robbed him of crucial momentum. He battled manfully through to the buzzer, but at the end he’d added 10 points. Getting 20 in a Mastermind semi final is a very respectable performance, but this is probably not that much consolation when you’re in your second semi final and you know, in your heart of hearts, that your chance of the win has probably gone.

Gary had managed 12 points on GK in his first-round heat. Like a number of the contenders we’ve seen in his set of semis, he found repeating this performance to be a tough ask. In his excellent “I’ve Started So I’ll Finish” Magnus Magnusson describes how Harold Boswell Taylor, question coordinator for many years on Mastermind, would ensure that the GK sets were harder for the semi-finals than the heats, then easier again for the final. I honestly don’t know whether that’s the case nowadays, or whether it’s just the luck of the draw according to which set you get at which time. Still, Gary fell somewhat short of Richard’s total, adding 7 to take his score up to 18.

As Patrick returned to the chair, the form book seemed very much in his favour. In the heats, he had scored 14 on GK, while Marianne had scored 10. Even starting 1 point behind, it looked likely that he could set a total Marianne would be unable to match. If he could repeat his performance from the heats, that is. Well, he didn’t quite manage that, but he only missed by one point, ending with 13. In all honesty, I just couldn’t see Marianne matching this, even at her best.

Sadly to say, Marianne wasn’t at her best. It’s probably fair to say that Marianne’s round didn’t go her way, and she ended up with a total of 18. What was noticeable though was just how much Marianne seemed to enjoy the whole experience. And rightly so. I hope that your pupils are proud of you, Marianne. You’re a Mastermind semi-finalist and they should be.

So it’s Patrick, number three on our unofficial seeding list, based on the first round performances, who goes forward to the Grand Final. Very well done, sir, and best of luck in the final. Speaking of which, a little later this week I will try to post a preview of the Final, and try to give you an idea of which of the runners and riders are most likely to give you a good run for your money. Hope to see you then.

The Details

Patrick Buckingham	Jean Harlow	13	0	13	0	26	0
Gary McKenzie	Porridge	11	0	7	0	18	0
Marianne McKillop	Alexander the Great	14	0	4	0	18	0
Richard Aubrey	World Snooker Championship 1977 - present	10	0	10	0	20	0

The History of Mastermind: Part 2: Fred and Co.

I’ve been a schoolteacher for 35 years now, and what’s more, I’m still the last schoolteacher to win Mastermind – although not the last educator. But I still remember how happy I was that London taxi driver Fred Housego won the 1980 series. I’ve said on this very blog on more than one occasion that I’ve never yet met Fred, and I would absolutely love to. (Fred, if by any chance you read this, I’m serious. Just drop me a message and let’s get it on.) It’s not like I grew up in a socially deprived area of London – I didn’t. But I always identified with the contenders from more - God, this is going to sound patronising - more ’humble’ professions. My old man was a mechanic (on a good day. On a bad day he was a boozy lush, but that’s another story for another time.) My mum was a housewife who had been a secretary. Nothing to be ashamed of there (apart from my Dad). But as a family we didn’t have a professional background. Friends of the family tended to be more like Fred than previous winners.

In the 70s and early 80s, until I went away to University, Mastermind was a show we would watch together as a family. I remain convinced that this was a practice which helped make me into a quizzer, because not only did you have to try to shout out the answer to a question before the contender on the telly, you also had to try to shout it out before anyone else in the room at the time. We also used to have our favourites in each series, and we liked Fred right from his first round. We’d felt the same about Philip Jenkins in 1979.

After he won his final, Fred became an instant celebrity, and within a couple of years he had a regular spot on London Weekend’s 6 O’Clock show, and his own TV series “History on Your Doorstep” One of these was about the London Borough of Ealing where I grew up, and very good it was too.

After this exuberance, normal service seemed to be resumed when schoolteacher Leslie Grout won in 1981. But the door was now open. Leslie wouldn’t be the last schoolteacher to win, but from now on they’d be the exception rather than the rule.

So, by 1982, the show had been running for 10 years. We’d had ten champions, and so the time was ripe to hold the first Champion of Champions tournament. Except that it wasn’t. The first I mean. Way back in 1975, immediately after John Hart’s final, a special called Supermind was filmed, pitting the first 4 champions in a winner takes all showdown. It beggars belief that you’d expect anyone to compete in this immediately after winning a Mastermind final. But then the Beeb had previous form on this score, when Patricia Owen had to film her Grand Final immediately after winning her semi final in 1973. Supermind was a close contest, and Nancy won the tie break. I believe that another Supermind contest happened sometime later, when the champ of that series took on luminaries such as Irene Thomas, and the current Brain of Britain and Brain of Mensa champions.

Coming back to 1982, the decision was made to shift Mastermind from the Autumn to the Spring schedules, which meant that the next series wouldn’t air until 1983. So the Champion of Champions mini-series was born. Five champions played in the first heat, and five more in the second. The two highest scoring champs from both of the two heats contested the final. That made sense, and the winner was. . . well, despite the huge support for Fred it was actually the 1977 champ, Sir David Hunt, who took the title. Incidentally, the only champ to have played in all three champions’ tournaments to date was Patricia Owen, and I did chat with her about this when we shared a heat in the 2010 champ of champs series.

So to 1983, and our second champion from outside the traditional Mastermind winning professions, Christopher Hughes. At the time, Chris was a London Underground train driver. I remember Chris had appeared a year or two earlier on a one-off ITV series called Top of The World, an ITV attempt at a big budget, big prize serious quiz show, fronted by Eamonn Andrews. Chris won a couple of shows but didn’t win the series. My opinion was that he was miles better by the time he was on Mastermind. I wouldn’t say that his subsequent celebrity status quite matched the heights of Fredmania a couple of years earlier, but in the long run it’s Chris who went on to become one of TV’s Eggheads, since which he also added the Brain of Britain title to his CV.

In 1984 another teacher, Margaret Harris, won, setting a massive record score of 38, while in 1985 another driver, ambulance driver Ian Meadows, won. Margaret Harris’ record only lasted for 2 years, because librarian Jennifer Keaveney twice scored 40 in the 1986 series. One of these two scores was achieved in the Grand Final.

It’s unthinkable that a contender could get close to 40 in the current incarnation of the show, but this is a relatively recent development, which we’ll discuss when we get to the current era. In the last 10 years, with rounds being different lengths in heats, semis and finals, sometimes even differing from one season to another, it’s very difficult to compare performances between the current era, and the Magnus era. One could even be wary of comparing seasons in the Magnus era with each other . In his book, Magnus admits that there were some seasons where the average scores were considerably lower than the previous or following ones, without any ostensible reason.

One thing we can say about the 1988 and 1989 winners, House of Lords clerk David Beamish and vet Mary-Elizabeth Raw, respectively, is that neither of them incurred any passes for the whole series. Before them, though, was the 1987 champion, Dr. Jeremy Bradbrooke. I met Jeremy at the Champion of Champions recordings in 2010, and he spoke with great affection about his time on Mastermind. One other notable thing about his series was that it saw the first appearance of Kevin Ashman, although he was defeated in the semi-final. He would be back once the one series only rule was scrapped in 1995.

I want to talk about that rule for a moment. Prior to 1995, contenders were only allowed to appear in one series of Mastermind. If they didn’t win – and most of them didn’t, let’s face it – then it was a case of sorry, but you don’t get to go again. In 1980 a lady called Sheila Denyer appeared in Fred’s series. Remember that. In Ian Meadows’ 1985 series, a lady called Sheila Altree appeared in the first round and won her heat. After the heat was aired, a former contender rang the show and asked, since a contender from a previous series was having another go, could she as well? The production team checked the tapes, and also the two application forms from 1980 and 1985, and there was no doubt, Sheila Denyer had divorced and remarried, and was now Sheila Altree. Sadly, Sheila was disqualified and her place in the semi went to the runner up in her heat, Ian McKillop, who won and went through to the final. After the rule was scrapped, Sheila was invited to reapply, and she played in the 1997 series. I believe she also played in the 2003 series, the first season of the BBC TV revival. I know for a fact that she reached the semi final in 2007, because it was my semi-final.

There are some extremely good quizzers and quiz people, whose opinions I always take note of and respect, who feel that you should only ever be allowed one attempt. I feel the opposite – not surprisingly considering that I bombed out in the first round in 2006, before doing a bit better the next season.

I’d like to say a little bit more about the 1989 champion, the late Mary Elizabeth Raw. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but won the series despite the debilitating effects of her illness. Mary-Elizabeth wrote about her experience on the show in her book, “. . . And No Passes”, and a very entertaining and informative read it is too.

One of the best type of questions . . .

It was Adam’s first turn as Question Master last Thursday night.  Adam is a member of my team, Boycs, who’s been coming ever since I returned to the quiz for the first time since the 2^nd lockdown back in August. Adam became the third of  regular team members to take a turn as QM. When my daughter Jess does it in a couple of weeks’ time, then all of us will have done it.

Adam’s quiz went down well. He used the connections format. This meant that in each round of 10 questions, three seemingly unconnected questions would have answers that were connected, and identifying that connection would provide the answer to the 4th question. My favourite connection was this one:-

In the USA, Kelvinator are particularly known for which appliance?

In Star Trek (The Next Generation), what is the surname of Beverly and Wesley?

Alison Moyet and Vince Clark formed which duo in the early 1980s?

What is the connection?

Answers

1) Fridge (FRIJJ)

2) Crusher (CRUSHA)

3) Yazoo (YAZOO)

All are brands of Milkshake.

Good stuff. However for me that was not the highlight. My dear friend and quiz mentor, the late Alan Coombs, used to say that the best kind of question is the one where you get it wrong, and say afterwards – I should have had that one -. It was only Adam’s first ever quiz as the question master, but he did it to me.

It was a good old quiz stager – who were the first ever married couple to be shown in bed together  on US TV? – Straightaway, I said – I’ve heard this. It’s a funny one, something like Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Then I spent the next 2 minutes persuading myself out of it. In all honesty I cannot remember which tortuous thought processes led me to reject this answer but reject it I did. The correct answer? Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Respect to Adam for that.

University Challenge Grand Final 2022 Preview

 We have to do it, Dearly Beloved. We have t look forward to tomorrow's grand final and make a prediction. Come on, you know you want to. 

Here’s Imperial’s path to the final –

R 1	Imperial	210	155	St. John’s Cambridge
R 2	Imperial	205	70	Exeter
QF1	Imperial	235	50	Kings
QF2	Imperial	225	120	Reading
SF	Imperial	170	65	Emmanuel,Cambridge

Putting that into perspective, that means that Imperial have an average of 209, with an average of 92 points conceded per match. Let’s do the same for Reading:-

R 1	Reading	175	110	Strathclyde
R 2	Reading	245	50	Dundee
QF 1	Reading	170	135	Birmingham
QF 2	Reading	120	225	Imperial
QF 3	Reading	145	70	St. Johns
SF	Reading	145	115	Edinburgh

This gives Reading an average score per match of 166.6, with an average of 117.5 points conceded per match.

Let’s not forget that quarter final match, either. Both teams won their first quarter final and met in their second quarter final match. Imperial ran out comfortable winners then. Let’s be honest, things are rarely as clear cut in the form book as they seem to be for this final. Imperial just have to turn up to become champions, don’t they? 

Well, no, it isn’t as simple as that. 

If we go back to basic principles, in a straight fight between two teams EITHER team can win given the right set of circumstances. Ah yes, you might well say, but isn’t it much more likely that Imperial will find the right set of circumstance than that Reading will? It certainly looks like it. They have never had a winning margin less than 100 points. They have one of the series’ outstanding buzzers in Max Zeng, another in Michael Mays, and great support from Fatima Sheriff and Gilbert Jackson. They haven’t shown very much in the way of areas of weakness. They showed resilience in the semi final against Emmanuel, when they didn’t get off to the best start, and only started to pull away just before the 20 minute mark.

Let’s not underestimate Reading, though. They were in the lead at the 10 minute mark in that fateful quarter final. In some ways, it was a foreshadowing of what happened in Imperial’s semi final against Emmanuel. Once Imperial found their mark it was had for Reading to even buy a starter. However, the fact is that their opening 12 minutes showed that they can outbuzz Imperial for periods of time. Michael Hutchinson is the top buzzer of the series so far with a massive 40. Margaret Ounsley has consistently provided good starters as well, often those starters which cause everyone else to furrow their brows. Sylvian Jesudoss and Kira Bishop also played their part in victories over St. John's and Edinburgh.

At the end of the day, I have to make a prediction, and I’m not going to bottle it. I have to plump for Imperial – apologies for that, Imperial. I hope I’ve made it clear that Reading can win, but I feel that the most likely outcome is Imperial lifting the trophy. Here’s hoping for another quality match, whatever else happens.