University Challenge

The St John's record on University Challenge was absolutely dire, having never, so far as we could tell, won a match. The last foray on to the screens had been back in 1996, when the college darts team had inexplicably got through the auditions, only to be soundly hammered by the London School of Economics.

We were hopeful, though, that we could reverse this record, but our strong team, featuring two university players, were completely overlooked in the auditions for the 1999-2000 series. St John's were the epitome of strength in depth, however, and as the lone survivor from that unsuccessful team, I got three new team-mates and another shot at fame and glory (allegedly).

University Challenge is not, as the programme makers would have you believe, a totally fair and representative competition. While they would love it to be believed that they spend exhaustive months running qualifying competitions to find the very best teams, in reality selection is done on the basis of 30 questions and a short interview. Personality and presentation, it seems, is key. So we went into auditions with myself as captain, and I'd love to say that I dazzled them with my stunning wit and superb personality; however, we'd decided on a cheaper trick, and I camped it up massively instead. Incredibly, it worked, and we were on the show.

A quick bit of footwork later, Patrick Finglass, classicist extraordinaire, had taken over the captaincy. To this day I wonder why we bothered with the footwork, as he later showed a fantastically dry sense of humour and a wonderful taste for the absurd. Also on the team was Edward Laird, the star scientist of the University team. Despite being a physicist, Edward also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Shakespeare, which came in very useful. Finally, on the end of the team skulked Aaron Bell, sport and politics guru, who would later vary between the brilliant and the inexplicable.

Our first game was against Birkbeck College, London. They were good, and we were nervous. More to the point, they were old (Birkbeck is a college for mature part-time students), and had nearly as much quizzing experience as we did. It was going to be a tough fight, and so it proved. We held pace until about half-way, with Aaron the only person to have really got over the stage fright. However, the questions then turned right against us, with "before our time" being our most popular attempt at many of them. With five minutes to go, Birkbeck were cruising and we were in deep trouble. Thankfully, University Challenge, otherwise a knock-out tournament, has an escape route - the four highest-scoring losing teams from the first round enter a play-off, from which two winners can progress to round two. We were still a good 50 or so points short even of this target, but we grit our teeth and went for it. In a tidy late flurry, the whole team pulled together to produce some excellent play, and we eventually made it to 195 points. This wasn't enough to overhaul Birkbeck, sitting pretty on 255, but, after a brief pause for checking (and a team photo), it was enough to make it to the play-offs. The curse hadn't been broken, but we had another chance.

With the filming schedules, we had to wait a month and a half to record our next game, at the end of July. Because some of us were working, we actually recorded the game a day later than planned, which meant that the winners would film their second round game only a few hours later. Our opponents were Edinburgh University, who had lost a high-scoring thriller to Hull University in the first round; they were however fielding a reserve, having lost one of their players to holidays, and the reserve herself didn't look in the best of health. Our spirits brightened. Then we heard that our colleagues from University College, Oxford had knocked Birkbeck out on a second round tie-break question, and our spirits brightened even more. This could be our chance.

We didn't have as large a support as for our first round game, but those who had made the trip made a good noise. We settled in, took a deep breath, and set off at a ferocious pace. Barely realising how well we were doing, we passed the 100 mark before Edinburgh had progressed far beyond zero. The whole team really began to fire on all cylinders, all of us picking up starters. Edinburgh rallied a bit, but only as far as 145 points; we meanwhile got the bonus part to notch up the magic 300-point target just as the gong went. If you're going to break a curse, break it in style!

We didn't have long to celebrate, though - after a short break we were back in the studio for a second-round Varsity clash against Queens' College, Cambridge. Queens' were, astonishingly, the last surviving team from the Other Place in the competition, three having fallen in the first round, and Newnham having narrowly lost out to our fellow play-off winners Bristol University only an hour earlier. Entertainingly, two different introductions for the show had to be recorded: one featured the tale of Queens' all kissing a photo of their patron, the Queen Mother, for luck, while the other omitted the tale should she unfortunately pass away in the six months between filming and showing the match (predictably, she didn't). By this stage, we were in a state. All of our team were already fatigued from the adrenalin rush of our earlier victory; in addition, I had got barely 4 hours sleep in the previous 48 hours, and was close to being a walking zombie. Thankfully, Edward was still awake... The questions were strange, falling into that peculiar zone of obscurity that the show mines on occasion. In particular, every bonus we got, they knew the answers to (as their faces clearly showed), and vice versa. It was in the middle ground of subjects on which we were mutually ignorant that the battle was won and lost, but we won it thanks to some inspired answers by Edward. In particular, his recognising the Malaysian words for "Mr" and "Mrs" ("I guessed", he said, when confronted by an astonished Paxman) gave us a crucial edge when we needed it most. The match passed quickly, and we didn't really realise how close it was, until the gong sounded with us holding a narrow but vital lead of 170-145. Cambridge were wiped out, and we joined two other Oxford teams in the last eight.

However, the game was memorable for a moment that was easily the funniest of the series. For the first half of the match, Paxman had been needling us for an apparent lack of pop culture knowledge, with comments such as "You stick to the high ground, lads." We knew the abuse would continue when we found ourselves with the music bonuses, after the starter question ("Name this gospel singer") had gone begging. The bonuses were on "people singing gospel whom you wouldn't normally expect to hear singing gospel". The first answer was clearly Elvis Presley. Aaron and I confirmed this to Patrick, and he waited patiently for the music to stop. "Elvis... uh..." he began. He turned to us for confirmation. "Presley!" I hissed. "Ah yes, Elvis Presley." declaimed Patrick, to the amusement of Paxman and the audience. Just as everyone was wondering whether he truly could be so unaware of popular culture, the familiar Finglass smile broke forth; Paxman conceded defeat at the hands of the wind-up (of course, the Daily Mail television reviewer missed the irony altogether, and wrote that it was lovely to see a nice young man who was not an utter philistine!).

At this point there was simply no question of our considering that we could win the competition, if only because we were in the eyes of most observers the third of the three Oxford teams alone. Balliol contained the formidable Ian Bayley, who had single-handedly destroyed UMIST and York, while University College, although lacking in prior experience, had recorded a blistering win over Magdalene College, Cambridge in the first round, and had avenged us in round two. The quarter-final draw kept all three Oxford team separate: in the top half of the draw, Univ. drew Sheffield Hallam, while we were to play Bristol (who had also come through the play-offs after losing to Hallam in round 1). In the other half of the draw, Hull University were thought to be Balliol's next victims, while the formidable teams from Imperial College, London and Manchester University faced off in the last match.

The filming took place at the beginning of October, still before our first round game had even been shown on TV. The week before, we had lost a warm-up game against Univ on a tie-breaker, and we were only slightly cheered therefore when they wiped out Hallam in the game before our filming. Bristol were a strong and well-organised team: their captain had quizzing in the blood, as his father was a former Mastermind champion (he would, some months later, become the second WWTBAM Millionaire). Both teams started well, and the scores were tight as we neared half-way. Then, as we began to slip away slightly, we put together a magnificent run of questions, each taking a pair of starters in turn, which pulled us about 50 points clear. Bristol didn't give up, however, but we held out for a 210-175 victory.

My overwhelming memory of the game is one of the two answers that will haunt me for eternity. The filming was taking place at the end of the summer in which Big Brother had become a television phenomenon - I had watched it all, avidly. A question on it was a fairly sure bet, but the form of the question surprised us all. A starter. "Not including Nick, who was thrown out," began Paxman, "please name in order of their eviction the contestants on the recent series of Big Brother." Silence. I knew I should know, but I couldn't remember the name of the first girl out. Something clicked. I buzzed. "St John's, Linham" intoned Jim Pope on the voiceover. "Sada, Andy, Caroline," I recited, as the audience and my team-mates held their breath. "Nicola, Tom..." I panicked. "Oh f**k, I've missed one!" I cried. Thank goodness for film editing - I hadn't, and my moment of swearing on national television could be swiftly forgotten. "Claire, Melanie..." Nearly there. "Darren, Craig." Argh! "Damn. I've missed Anna." Paxman looked as sympathetic as it's possible for the hatchet-faced sourpuss to look, and offered the question. Quite inexplicably, Bristol failed to capitalise, but my 10 seconds groping around with my memories of bad taste television would live on for a long time.

Following our exertions, we collapsed in the green room with a drink, and settled down to watch Balliol take on Hull. Conventional wisdom was that this was going to be another walk in the park for Bayley on his stroll to the title, as Hull had won both their preceding games by very narrow margins. We don't know whether it was the questions, which were somewhat bizarre, nerves or indeed Bayley being slightly unwell, but the unthinkable started to happen. Hull were winning. As the game progressed, and the time for the expected Balliol comeback filtered away, Hull seemed to be getting stronger, and the Oxonians looked to be wilting. With five minutes to go, a voice in the green room croaked, "they could just do this," as we perched nearer and nearer the edges of our seats. The seconds seemed like minutes and the minutes seemed like hours, but it didn't matter: Hull were holding on. Two minutes to go, and it looked out of reach. Traitors to the last, we were on our feet, cheering for Hull. The gong went. We cheered, then felt silent: we couldn't actually believe what had just happened. Balliol had lost for only the fourth time in three years, but they had choked on the edge of serious glory. What's more, Bayley, having already appeared on the show for Imperial, London some years earlier, became the first person to lose three times on the show in the Paxman era. And try as we might to sympathise with Balliol, we all realised that the door to the title was now wide open.

We crashed back into our £125-a-night hotel (thank you Granada!) quite worn out, and hoping for a good night's sleep. After a quick dinner at a local pizza place, we headed for bed, wanting to be well-rested to face Univ. the next day. Univ. had other ideas. At five o'clock in the morning, in the room I was sharing with Aaron, the phone rang. I picked it up to hear the speaking clock. We would later find out that the wake-up call had been booked by Univ's George Callahan, the most odiously smug git ever to ooze over a buzzer system. We vowed revenge.

The game itself was, if anything, an anticlimax. The questions, as promised, were harder for the semi-finals, and Univ. seemed to be ill-at-ease with the increased difficulty. By contrast, we thrived, and stormed away into the lead once again. By the time we reached the music round, we were comfortably ahead and still gaining. Therefore, when some unintentional noises off from bits falling off the audience seating meant that the music round had to be refilmed, we turned in acting worthy of an Oscar, as Patrick in particular hammed up his utterly unconvincing wrong answers. The net effect was to make Univ. all the more uncomfortable. The end, when it came, was sweet - about five seconds after the gong sounded, the cameras watched us go swiftly through disbelief, slight shock then total euphoria as we realised that we were actually in the final. Half of the Univ. team appluaded nicely and congratulated us. Sadly, they were let down by the odious git end of the line, who thought rude hand signals and muttered obscenities were more appropriate. How sad.

We didn't have long to enjoy the smugness, though, as we had barely a few hours before the final was to be filmed. In the meantime, we returned to the green room to watch as Imperial sauntered gleefully past Hull in the second semi-final. We had our opponents. Before we could get down to the serious business, though, we had to practice receiving the trophy. "This is going to hurt later for the losers," opined Patrick. How true.

There was no doubt that we were the underdogs in the final. Even Paxman, rarely a defender of Oxford, was happy to point out the difference in size between the two institutions represented. Of course, it might have been better for Paxman to point out that there were five St John's players in the final, as Alexander Campbell of Imperial had graduated from the college a couple of years earlier. So much for loyalty!

The first half of the final was a rather dull affair, by all accounts, as the scores remained close. This, however, was not going to stop my second shot at notoriety, as I revealed one piece of knowledge too far. The clues in the starter question were all about an 18th birthday present, and as Paxman read on, a bell was tolling deep in my memory. As he started to give a list of names, the penny dropped. He was talking about the Queen's corgis. The response to that one answer has probably overshadowed everything else I ever did on that show: Paxman was flabbergasted, the Radio Times was still mentioning it six months later, and I became sorely tempted to get a t-shirt made saying "Don't mention the corgis!". It's not as if it's rocket science or anything either.

The wheels started to come off around the half-way stage, as first the music round, then several starters after that all fell into Imperial's lap. Neutral observers, for what they're worth, have suggested that there was a glut of science in the questions, and I would have to agree. In any case, the non-science seemed to be mainly literature and modern art, neither of which were much help to us either. The net result, whatever the rights and wrongs, was that we were well and truly out of it with three minutes to go, and a filming break gave us the time to acknowledge this to each other.

There then followed one of the most amazing bits of quizzing, as we decided to let the gung-ho loose. Aaron and I were half-standing, hunched over our buzzers. The normally reserved Edward was yelling out answers at Paxman. I managed to answer "misericord" even before Jim Pope could open his mouth to say who had buzzed. Aaron answered "metabolism" off precisely no clues at all. Imperial admitted afterwards that it was the longest three minutes of their lives, but it was never going to be enough, and we were still 55 points short as the gong sounded (250-195). It hurt to watch Imperial take the trophy from Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, just as Patrick had predicted.

The one question that people always ask is: "what is Paxman really like?". Opinions differ, shall we say, but I'm not a fan. I found him really rather rude, both on and off screen. He also looks much older in the flesh before the make-up department get to him. But, most of all, for someone as intolerant of the errors of others as he is, he is extraordinarily prone to making mistakes himself. I can only surmise that the reason that we don't see the show's out-takes on Auntie's Bloomers is that the Paxman ego won't allow it.

All in all, I had a great time at UC. It's not the best as tournaments go, and there's always something a bit askew about the questions, but as an experience it cannot be beaten. I'm sure I'll get people asking about the corgis from now until eternity, but I guess I'll live :-)

For the story of what happens after the show has been filmed, see my piece "University Challenge: Surviving the Fame".

NOTE: Since this piece was written, Jim Pope, the long-serving announcer on the show, has sadly passed away. We'll always remember him as a most wonderful wit and gossip, who always had time for the teams in between games, and was a true professional in the studio.

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