Sunday, January 12, 2014

7th Jan Away to the Ox-Fford C


The first game after the Christmas break and after two weeks of intense eating and drinking the Lemmings managed to waddle to the Tavern and get a lift across town to the Ox-Fford, a pub that has seen some ups and downs during the economic crisis but now seems to have settled comfortably under new management. The pub still supports two quiz teams and other activities. It has always been a pub for football supporters so it was bound to be a noisy night as Manchester United were playing Sunderland.
I don’t think the Lemmings have ever played this team before so it was with some trepidation that they trooped onto the the Ox FFord C’s home turf. The game was played in a small back room in a very pleasant atmosphere presided over by Alan from the Dolphin with an ebullient style and occasional charade, in particular West Life’s Go West.
When the game was interrupted by a great cheer from the other bars following a goal from Sunderland, it became clear that the TV watchers were Man City fans, assuming Sunderland had not bussed fans into Macc. Sadly this was to be repeated following a very muted equaliser.
The questions were much to the Lemmings’ taste, two rounds in particular: Sport in which we were asked to identify certain international sporting venues and a round on the usually frowned-on capital letters and acronyms in which only the letter M was to be identified.
By the the end of the Specialist the Lemmings had stolen a slender lead of seven points with 67 to 60.
The General Knowledge were not quite as inventive but again suited the Lemmings’ interests. A very clever idea was to include a question to which the answer was an armadillo and the Lemmings did not get it!! There was just one mild issue when Alice gave the Polish name for Stettin and Nick was able to confirm this was right because in his days as an overseas telegraphist all telegrams had to begin with a handshake sequence of ZCZC and Szczcettin always caused a problem as the message kept starting again!!
The Lemmings won the GK 86 to 67 and the game finished 153 to 127.
Individual scores were Bob with a remarkable 15/24, Wendy 9/12, Nick 18/12 and Tomo 12/12; conferred points were 10/20 with 3/6 pass-overs. The Ox-Fford C picked up 4/5 pass-overs.
It was a most enjoyable game rounded off with a generous selection of sandwches and a quiche – another first!!!
The final flourish was when Alan the questionmaster recalled that the Lemmings had beaten his team in the first half of the season but that the next game they would leather us!! Bring it on!!!
Many thanks to the Ox-Fford and their team.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Home to the Oxfford C, rather than the OxFFord?

Anonymous said...

didn't mean to be anonymous. Liz H

Nick said...

Whoooops! Sorry - now sorted - thanks for pointing it out