News & Views - Week 7 (02/12/2014) & Week 8 (09/12/2014)

Milestones...

All the latest results are now on the blog as I write. Hopefully I will be around to update it a little more frequently now!There have been some remarkable efforts in the last couple of weeks which are worthy of further mention:

In Week 5, the Church House Bollington won their game 201 – 82, becoming (as far as I’m aware) only the third team (after the Ox-fford 'C' and the Dolphin) to score over 200 points in a League game. All players scored incredibly well with Ashton Davies getting a “PB” 54. Well done indeed to all concerned for what looks like a “record breaking” event - and well done to Alice Walker for having a better memory than I have and reminding me of the records!

Also worthy of congratulation is this season’s best individual score so far, namely a 57 in Week 6 from Scott Dawson of the Waters Green Rams, just one question short of the magical “full house”.

The only question Scott didn’t get right was his second one of the night about the name of the hill on which White Nancy stands, which Scott can be entirely forgiven for, not living in Macclesfield! Well done to Scott for such a great effort.

Cup & Plate Quarter Final Draws...

Cup Round 2 & Plate Round 1 Results

News & Views - Week 5 (11/11/2014) & Week 6 (18/11/2014)

Week 4...

Just 4 weeks into the new season and only 2 of the 27 teams remain unbeaten in the League. 

"Doing a Chelsea" in the A League are the Ox-fford 'C' whilst the Church House Bollington are replicating the feat in the C League.

Congratulations to both for their excellent starts. The Ox-fford 'C' are setting questions for Week 5, so will certainly keep their unbeaten run going for at least another week!

News & Views - Week 4 (04/11/2014)

Cup Round 2 & Plate Round 1 Draws...

Cup Round 1 Results...

News & Views - Week 2 (14/10/2014) & Week 3 (21/10/2014)

Week 1...

We are up and running and all the first week scores can be found below.

The News & Views have been published here exactly as distributed to all the teams playing and you can find the draw for Round 1 of the Cup on Page 3.

Enjoy...

News & Views - Week 1 (07/10/2014)

And so it begins...again...for 2014/15!

Who would have thought it would come to this? Season 34 of the Macclesfield Quiz League is upon us!

At the AGM on Tuesday 16 September we had an excellent Plate Final which ended in an 87 – 66 win for the Robin Hood over the Cock Inn. 

Congratulations to both teams for an exciting contest and particularly to the Robin Hood for securing their first ever piece of silverware. Thanks also to the Knot Know-Alls and Park Taverners for sorting out an interesting and testing set of questions.

The game was expertly question mastered as ever by Rick Davis and I would like to thank him along with Nick Peck who scored beautifully with the less than useful assistance of my reading glasses in lieu of his own!

The AGM was reasonably straightforward  You will remember that we put up the subscriptions last year for the first time in 5 years and thankfully no further increase is necessary. Subscriptions thus remain at £50 per team.

Last year, we made a change to the Specialist Question categories when we changed to six “fixed” Specialist rounds instead of the previous five – the Arts and Entertainment round was split into two last year to rounds called Art and Culture and Entertainment leaving two rounds to the discretion of the question setters rather than three.

A change was proposed to revert back to the previous arrangement and a healthy debate was had. A very close vote (10-9) amongst the teams present decided to revert to the previous arrangements, thus we will go back to having the five “fixed” Specialist Rounds plus three at the discretion of the setters. 

I (and my team) voted to keep the new arrangement, but I don’t have particularly strong views on the subject. The whole idea of changing things last year was to offer some help in trying to eliminate some of the more oddball rounds we’ve had in the past, but that can still happen anyway – you can set a round of bizarre questions on pretty much any subject, I think, if you are so inclined!

One thing that did work well last year was that more vetting was done by the teams setting etc, so that is the best way forward – try and set them in plenty of time and take notice of what the vetters tell you if they have valid comments.

Failing all that, just as we do about football refereeing decisions, moaning about the questions is often half the fun of the night anyway, and we do have the Nine-Banded Armadillo Trophy to find a home for!

The new 2014/15 Rules have full guidance as to what the categories of questions should contain.   

The  season started its first round of games on Tuesday 7 October - results to follow...

And finally for 2013/14...

Folks,

Many thanks as always to all who attended the Finals Night on Tuesday. There was an excellent turn-out and photos are posted below, all things being equal.

The result of the Cup Final saw the Waters Green Rams beat the Dolphin Dragons by 112 – 97. Congratulations to all concerned.

This was indeed a mighty effort by the Waters Green Rams who have enjoyed their most successful season ever. They are also the first team other than one from the Dolphin or Ox-fford to win the Cup since at least 1998. Well done indeed to them.

I’ve had a bit of time on my hands lately as you know – and if you didn’t, you could probably guess from the above piece of information!  I am trying to fill in just a few “blanks” in Macc Quiz League history as to who won what when etc. I don’t have a proper record of who won the Cup in 1990, 1991, 1994, 1996 or 1997. If you can assist, please do!

Thanks must go to Rick Davis and Neil Drummond for asking the questions and scoring respectively. Thanks also to Brian Bogie of the Knot Arf and Graham Bailey from the Weaver for question preparation. An excellent effort by all concerned.   

The final trophy of this year will be settled at the start of next season as usual. The Plate Final will be:-

Robin Hood v Cock Inn

This game will be played at the AGM before the start of next season, date and place to be confirmed. The Knot Know-Alls and the Park Taverners will assemble questions for this game from those not used for the Cup Final.

An excellent season saw the Nags Head win the C League with the Bate Taverners also promoted in finishing second. These two teams were relegated last season and bounce back to the B League at the first time of asking. Best wishes also go to Andy Johnson from the Nags Head, currently recuperating at home after some surgery. Andy must surely have clocked up more miles than anyone in travelling to play in the League over the years and I wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to his return next year.

Phil Davies from the Bate Taverners won the C League Individual title for the first time.

In the B League the Waters Green Rams emerged triumphant at the top of the tree and after Tuesday they have done the Cup and League Double – a fantastic achievement. The Harrington Academicals finished second and both teams will play in the A League next time around.

Keith Pointon bagged the B League Individual title for the third year running (having won the C League equivalent the year before that).

The Weaver were crowned A League Champions and rightly so after losing the fewest games of any team in the A League and they are very hard to beat at any time, covering most subject areas between all the members of the team. This is their second win in four years and no one should rule out a few more yet.

As for the A League Individual winner, even Betfred have stopped taking bets that anyone will ever catch his record number of such titles – this is the 12^th since his first in 1994/95. Step forward Alan Hodgson. Well done sir and no more than you deserve.

The Ox-fford won the Cars and Vans 4U Ltd Question Setters Trophy for their General Knowledge questions from way back in Week 1, giving them their third win in a row of this trophy. Thanks as ever to Allan Sherratt for his support.

It occurs to me there is just one more issue to be settled along with the Plate Final – how about a few more nominations for the Nine-Banded Armadillo Trophy for the season’s daftest question? You know where to send them…

Finally, my thanks once again to Rick Davis who stood in to provide News & Views updates in my absence at the end of the season. I continue to improve with every week that passes and my thanks to all of you for all your kind messages in recent months, it is much appreciated.

If I don’t see you before, have a great summer and see you in the autumn when the ball will roll once more…

Regards,

MW