University Challenge: Round 1: Match 9: St Andrews vs Bangor

The first big laugh of tonight came before tonight’s show, when the poor continuity announcer said ‘cheesecuck’ instead of ‘cheesecake’, when previewing ‘Nigellissima’, which was on after tonight’s show. Never mind, could’ve been worse!

Anyway, on with the show. St Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland, and the third oldest in Scotland. Alumni include my first minister and MSP, Mr Alex Salmond, and, of course, Will and Kate. Playing for the university tonight were:

Ben Adams, from Banchory in Aberdeenshire, studying English Literature

Jim Parsons, from Leicester, studying History

Captain: James Gray, from Edinburgh, studying Classics

Andrew Newton, from Inverness, studying Maths

You may have been expecting me to be fully rooting for the Scottish side, especially seeing as they had a student from my home county. You’d be wrong. You see, one of the Bangor side has been leaving comments on here and on LAM, under the name ‘Welshguy’. So, therefore, my impartiality was strong tonight. Playing for the Welsh uni were:

Adam Pearce, from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, studying Translation Studies

Mark Stevens, from Widnes in Cheshire, studying Environmental Science

Captain: Nina Grant, from Enfield in London, studying French and Linguistics

Simon Tomlinson, from Manchester, studying Neuropsychology

The Welsh dominated the first part, with Mr Tomlinson getting the first two correct answers of the night. We then had a run of quite a few dropped starters, including one where Mr Gray of St Andrews buzzed, then said his answer was obviously wrong, so he wouldn’t bother saying it! Paxo said he’d take his word for it!

Throughout much of the first half, the sides swapped the lead, though the scoring stayed low, with not many bonuses being converted. At the music round, the scores were 60-50 in Bangor’s favour. Both sides knew the music starter was by Coldplay, but neither got the song name right. Mr Tomlinson of Bangor then had an unfortunate moment when, following an incorrect interruption from the opposition, he buzzed with another answer straight away, only to be told he was also wrong! St Andrews picked up the music bonuses, but converted none of them, though they did have a couple of close misses.

Bangor were still ahead at this point, and remained so for most of the rest of the match. One good starter asked, if the colours of the rainbow were arranged alphabetically, which ones would be first and last respectively. St Andrews made the same mistake I did, and forgot about yellow, which Bangor didn’t. After the second picture round, Bangor began to pull out a handy lead, and, though St Andrews fought back in the closing minutes, they didn’t quite catch them. In the end, Bangor won the match 125-105.

It may have been a low scoring match, but it was an entertaining one, and it’s a shame we won’t be seeing St Andrews again. Andrew Newton answered four starters correctly, but just 6 bonuses out of 24 with three penalties was what let them down. Simon Tomlinson also got four starters for Bangor, who managed an only slightly better 11 bonuses out of 24 with two penalties. Well done to ‘Welshguy’ and the team, and best of (hypothetical) luck in the next round.

Next week’s match: Lancaster vs Pembroke College Cambridge (runners-up in the last series)

Tonight’s Only Connect was a close one until the final round, when one of the teams ran away. The winning team included Dorian Lidell and James Wilson, who are no strangers to TV, having appeared on Pointless together a couple of years ago, and won the jackpot! They also represented Bath on University Challenge in two separate years (Wilson in 2008-09 and Lidell in 2011-12), both going out in the first round.