OK, Happy New Year all! First blog post of the new(/final year of the) decade, at the end of a festive period that's seen me have a long hard think about this blog's future. Why exactly this has come up I shall go into more detail about at a later date. For now, let's focus on the matter in hand: the second week's play of Xmas UC.
Monday 30th: Trinity Hall Cambridge vs St Peter's Oxford
Trinity Hall: Philip Dawid, Sophie Winkleman, Laura Mangan, Tony Palmer
St Peter's: Gordon Corera, Felicity Cloake, Afua Hirsch, Paul Ayers
St Peter's got off to the better starter, but Trinity Hall quickly got the upper hand and ran into a comfortable lead. Though St Peter's recovered later on, Trinity Hall were too far ahead, and ultimately won 185-80, securing a place in the semi-finals.
Tuesday 31st: Warwick vs Imperial
Warwick: Liam Halligan, Tom Goodman-Hill, Ritula Shah, Jonathan Bell
Imperial: Judith Hackitt, Kenan Malik, Brendan Walker, Martin Bland
The year(/decade) ended with a low scoring contest; after Warwick took the first starter, Imperial took the next few and maintained a steady lead throughout the contest as both teams scored slowly. Warwick recovered a bit late on, but Imperial won 115-80, not enough for a return.
Wednesday 1st: Trinity Hall vs Wadham
On paper, this should have been a close contest, with just 20 points separating the team's first round scores. In the event, however, Wadham shot into an early lead and Trinity Hall never really got into gear; matters weren't helped by three penalties dropping them to -15, making one of only a small number of teams to have fallen that far down (New Hall Cambridge from 1997-98 and Imperial from 2015-16 are two others, and I think there may have been another between then and now, I'd better check). The match caused a minor Twitter storm early on when, during a bonus round on pantomine, Paxo appeared for a single shot dressed as a panto dame! (Not the first time something like that's happened; he appeared as Santa for a single shot back in the 2013 Xmas series). He was right to say that the final score of 215-25 didn't do Trinity Hall justice; we know them to be a better team than that. Wadham, however, were worthy winners and finalists.
Thursday 2nd: Leeds vs U.C.L.
Similar story here: while Leeds were comfortable and worthy winners in the end, U.C.L. were a better team than the final score suggests. I remember, many years ago, when UC alumnus Jacob 'Exeter' Funnell wrote a blog recalling his experience on the show, an anonymous commenter said that at least his team (who had lost 350-15 to Gail Trimble's Corpus Christi team) had two previous matches to their credit, which is more than teams similarly trounced in the first round have. Same here: U.C.L. we know to be a good team, but Leeds were just so much better; they ultimately won 205-45.
Friday 3rd: Wadham vs Leeds
A great final, played very well indeed by two very good teams. Wadham took the first starter, but Leeds quickly got the upper hand and had pulled out a sizeable lead by the time the Oxonians next got some points on the board. From then on, the two teams more or less racked up the points at the same pace, but Leeds always maintained their strong advantage. The final score was 235-130 to Leeds; it was, as Mr Mosey pointed out on Twitter, the highest score Xmas UC final, and deservedly so. Well done to him and his team on a worthy effort, but very well done indeed to Leeds, very worthy winners, and the first non-Oxbridge team to win Xmas UC! Well done them!
So, that's Xmas UC done for another year, and it was definitely one of the better series of it, if not the best, with only one low scoring contest and several strong performances by very good teams. Well done and thank you to all who took part, a top series!
The student series resumes tomorrow evening; don't know who's playing yet, but if I see anything, it'll be retweeted. And don't forget, Quizzy Mondays has now expanded, with Mastermind at 7:30 preceding OC and UC, so don't forget to set your alarms for half an hour earlier from now on!
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