2019/20, Grand Final - Imperial vs Corpus Christi, Cam

If you haven't already you can watch the episode here before reading this post:

For the first year since 2013 there is no Oxford college in the Grand Final of University Challenge. In that time they only won a single trophy, when Balliol beat Wolfson in 2017, with various other colleges losing five more, mostly to sides from Cambridge. Manchester’s win over UCL seven years ago also marked the last time a London University had made the final, with Birkbeck’s triumph in 2003 the last time a series winner had come from the capital

(If you read my Preview then you may have noticed that I’m reusing it as the introdction to the review, so you can just go ahead and skip to the start of play if you’re bored already. Otherwise, get stuck into some stats)

Imperial arrived in the studio looking to add to two previous Grand Final wins, the most recent of which came in 2001 against St John’s, Oxford, and they narrowly missed out on retaining their title against Somerville, Oxford the following year.

Corpus Christi’s sister college at Oxford was involved in the most controversial moment of UC history in 2009 when their winning side, featuring the first UC celebrity Gail Trimble, was disqualified after the fact for fielding an ineligible player. This is a first final for the Cambridge Corpus though, who had never previously made it beyond the second round in the Paxman-Era.

The past ten years of University Challenge has seen only four women lift the trophy (out of a total of forty winners). Tonight’s match won’t add to that total, as for the third time in four years the final is an all-male affair. The reasons for this are numerous, and have been written about by many people (including Corpus captain Wang). Female contestants apply in fewer numbers and (this being a reason behind the former) receive a different level of commentary to the male contestants, with comments more often unsavoury and focussed on looks, as this thread by Jesus contestant Lucy Clarke details.

However, one promising aspect of the line-up in terms of breaking the white-male hegemony is that three of the contestants are not white. Only three winning contestants in the last 12 years (thanks again to Ian Wang’s article) have been people of colour, but that number will be added to tonight, either by Corpus stars Wang and Gunasekera or Imperial’s Brandon.

Both Wang and Brandon are players who are well on their way to becoming quizzy celebs in the vein of Trimble (and 2017s Monkman and Seagull, who have fully-fledged (pun intended) media careers now), both in terms of how many questions they’ve answered and in terms of how they have captured the public imagination.

Corpus Captain (Grandmaster) Wang (who narrowly edges his teammates Stewart and Gunasekera out with 19 starters to their 17 and 18) has gained a following for his childlike glee whenever he gets a head scratcher right. His conferences with teammates over bonus questions can also be a delight to watch, with no stone left unturned in any discussion.

My favourite moment like this was in Corpus’ semi final music round. The question asked for two composers, one of whom taught the other. He agreed with left-hand man Gunasekera that the first tune was by Ravel, and Gunasekera quickly identified that the second one was by Vaughn-Williams. ‘Do we know if Vaughn-Williams was taught by Ravel?’, asked Wang, wanting to make absolutely sure. ‘Well, I know its by Vaughn-Williams’, replied Gunasekera.

Imperial are also very good at conferring, with a clear hierarchy of who knows best on the various different topics (McMeel on maths, and Brooks for the classical music for example), but they have a less balanced approach when it comes to the starter questions. Brandon (outta Jamaica, Queens) has been their outstanding player on the buzzer, with 32. Captain Rich is next with 13. (The Times list his total score for the series as 482, which is interesting because its exactly 100 points less than @ jack_jmmcb gets using his scoring method. And he scored exactly 100 points in his first match, which may indicate that they missed that out of the calculation)

This is no surprise though, because Brandon has strong quiz experience, winning more than £375,000 over appearances on three gameshows in the States, starting when he was just 14. Well, like his semi-final badge and Twitter bio say, he’s not here to make friends.

Many “commentators” on Twitter have lambasted him as arrogant, and Paxman himself hit him with a sneering ‘Oh, is this too easy for you?’ in one of the early rounds, the general belief being that he’s acting like the competition is beneath him. But then again, when he seemed to be having a grand old time in the semi final, pointing at his teammates when he knew they had the answer, he got slagged off for that too. You can never win. And I don’t think he’s acting like he’s above the competition either. Like all people who are good at things he’s practised. And practised. And then done some more practising.

Using the techniques of Roger Craig, the famed Jeopardy contestant who personally taught him as a youngster, he trained himself to be good at quizzing. And then, by watching loads of old episodes of University Challenge, to become really good at University Challenge.

So he’s clearly very good. But University Challenge isn’t won by one person. There are four players on each team, and when you take the total number of starters answered by Imperial (63) and Corpus (59), there is barely any gap between them. In total Imperial have scored 1170 points to Corpus’ 1075. Pretty close too.

Brandon himself was keen to stress that Imperial were not a one-man team, and said on Twitter after the semi final iwin that ‘if you’re expecting me vs Wang in the final, don’t tune in. This is his team vs our team’.

Interestingly, there are two teams that both finalists played and beat, so that might provide an insight into who is better placed to win. However…

Imperial 235 - 80 Trinity, Cam … Imperial 185 - 115 Durham

Corpus 245 - 80 Trinity, Cam … Corpus 185 - 130 Durham

…they have almost identical records against those two sides.

Anyway, you all know the rules by now. Here’s your first starter for ten…

Its Brooks, not Brandon, who gets Imperial off the mark, with tea, an answer most befitting of his soft teddy beat aesthetic. Bonuses on Italian cities gave them two more in quick succession. Stewart came in early for Corpus on the next starter, but Gothic Architecture is unfortunately part of the question that hadn’t been asked yet, so he loses five points. Brooks tries his luck again, but he misses too, and then its McMeels turn to come in with a rapid buzz of asteroids on the next ten pointer.

A correct guess of Vivienne Westwood follows, but Brandon laments that ‘This is a weird period for me’, of 1930s Italian fashion designers and they miss the next bonus. He gets his buzzer fingers involved on the next starter though, a typically quickfire attack followed by a fist-pump-y gesture at McMeel, who looked like he knew what it meant.

He picks up the picture starter from Stewart, who guessed quickly but wrongly that it was the First Crusade (it was the Third). McMeel takes his second of the night, thereby matching his best performance of the series before the halfway point. They only manage one bonus, but they are already a hundred points clear.

Wang finally gets Corpus back into positive figures with an excellent buzz on an Art Starter (an arter? No, ignore that). They answer three bonuses on songs in 7/4 time in record time, interrupting Paxman after only a few words on the second two. Indeed he wasn’t ready to hear Wang’s Dave Brubeck so early on in the question that the Corpus captain had to repeat himself.

Brandon got his third of the night to put a stop to any plans Wang might have been formulating. He wouldn’t get another starter for the rest of the match though, and looked hopefully at Brooks on the music question, hoping to pull off another buzz-by-proxy as in the semi final, but Gunasekera beat him to the punch and then spectacularly rattled off the bonuses without so much as a pause. Impeccable.

Rich, who had suffered unfair questions as to his captaincy on Twitter, then took control of the match, silencing any doubters. In his previous three matches he had only taken four starters (though his skill on the bonuses couldn’t be questioned), but he took four of the next seven, with Brooks and McMeel taking one each too, as Imperial glided serenely upwards like a swan who’s forgotten its keys at the top of a waterfall but can’t be bothered to fly.

The one starter which went to Corpus over that stretch was the second picture round, on movies, which Wang utterly annihilated, taking 4/4 in a matter of seconds. This was unsurprising, his film knowledge has been astounding all series, but it had been clear for some time that it wouldn’t be enough, but it went some way to establishing a respectable score. A couple more starters for Stewart took them above one hundred points, which was no mean feat with Imperial in such devastating form, but at the gong it was the London side who took the applause, and Professor Andrew Wiles presented them with the trophy in Oxford, later on.

Final Score: Imperial 275 - 105 Corpus Christi, Cambridge

With a total score of 380 between them, this was the highest scoring final since 2010, when Alex Guttenplan’s Emmanuel beat St John’s, Oxford 315-100. In recent years the finals have been nervy affairs, with several matches being among the lowest scoring of their respective series.

Congratulations to both teams for putting on a show. Imperial deserve huge credit and probably to be acknowledged as one of the strongest winning teams of the past decade. And though they were blown away by Imperial’s buzzing power, Corpus still proved an excellent team, taking 13/15 bonuses that they got.

Brandon ends the campaign with 35 starters to his name, narrowly edging out Trinity’s Hughes (34) to be the best buzzer of the series. But, as he was at pains to tell us for months, he was outshone by his teammates in the final, which gives this tweet ‘Everybody who thinks I’m carrying the team is either gonna look real smart or real dumb next wk-soz in advance xx’ a bit of context.

And contrary to what his badge says, he certainly seemed to be having a grand old time with his teammates. He may not have been there to make friends, but it looks like he did.

FIN

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Cheers, and I’ll see you in July. Stay curious.