2022/23, Episode 5 - Cranfield vs Royal Holloway

Right, gang - I got distracted watching skits about contact tracing on Twitter so I now only have thirteen minutes to write this intro rather than the thirty I had initially planned for (its remarkably easy to fall down a ‘skits about contact tracing’ rabbit hole, and it's a surprisingly deep rabbit hole), but we’re going to give this a go anyway...

Something football fans will idly do if there aren’t any matches on, or if the only match thats on is something like Burnley vs Watford (mid-October, not mid-March in the depths of a relegation battle), is idly speculate about what the ideal lineup of Premier League teams would be. Unlike American sports in which there is no promotion and relegation, the football pyramid is a constantly shifting chimaera, meaning that you can never have all of the most “noble and historic” teams in the top division at the same time.

Indeed, they did try and engineer a version of this for teams across the European continent in the form of the European Super League, but this was shouted down for being one of the most soulless and corporate ideas ever to come out of soulless and corporate modern sport. But it's something fun to think about, anyway.

I actually have a list of 22 teams for my dream Premier League on my phone, dated 5th January 2019 (just so you know I’m walking the walk as well as talking the talk here). I’d share, but the controversy would likely be too much for me (and you) to handle. The thought processes behind this decision making are very abstract and unknowable, but essentially, in most people’s cases, it probably boils down to two things: one - who used to be really good, ages ago?; and two - who was sort of okay when you were between the ages of five and thirteen. This is why my particular list contains Nottingham Forest and Portsmouth, despite neither of them having been in the top division (until Forest’s ascent this year) for quite a while.

You may also have noticed that my league has 22 participants, while the actual league only has 20. This is because of a third aspect of the decision making process - the idea of the golden age. Despite the fact that I was never alive when the Premier League had 22 teams, it feels to me like football must have been better, and more pure when it did.

Nothing can be as good now as it used to be.

This is a truism in more than just football. When we look at the past, we look at it with rose-tinted glasses.

I imagine you’re wondering what the heck this all has to do with University Challenge, and you’d have good reason to. Your wondering will likely not be abated by my explanation either, because the observation it is based on is far from universal.

When choosing my ideal 28 team lineup for University Challenge, I’d have all of the major players - your Yorks, and your Edinburghs, your Durhams and Warwicks and Imperials and St Andrewses. A sprinkling of the most successful Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, Trinity, Magdalene, Corpus Christi… The Open University. I’d also have one of tonight’s teams, despite them only having appeared four times in the Paxman Era.

However, in one of those four appearances, Cranfield made the final, so in the hours I have spent on the University Challenge Wikipedia page over the years, scrolling through the list of past finals, they must have seeped into my head as an absolutely classic UC team. They’ve not been on the show since they were beaten in the Grand Final by Birkbeck in 2003, but I’ve absorbed that name over the course of countless repeat visits to that one webpage, to the extent that I had written all of that stuff about the Premier League without even checking their overall record. Still, they make my roster regardless.

Unfortunately, Royal Holloway, with their pair of second round appearances, do not. But that’s quite enough nostalgia for one intro, lets get on with the show (this has taken me twenty one minutes, so I’m going to be watching on a delay, but that ain’t half bad for seven hundred words I don’t think)

The first starter goes to Brown of Royal Holloway, winning the race to Renee Zellwegger. They pass on a very guessable bonus- as in they should have at least given a guess, not necessarily that they would have got it right - which is not the most promising of signs, but they get the third at least. Brown then takes another starter, and they took two bonuses on the Copley medal.

Suri gets Cranfield off the mark with pop art, and they get two bonuses on the letter X, before Keenan takes the first picture round to bring them within five points. Two bonuses on proposed new states reversed the deficit.

Harvey gets a starter for Holloway, and I was about to chastise them for saying snapping turtle instead of snapper turtle on a bonus, and chastise Paxman for allowing the answer, but a quick Google has revealed that it was I who was in the wrong. How embarrassing. At least I didn’t publish that without checking, though.

Cranfield’s double act of Keenan and Suri take another ten points each to reclaim the lead for the Bedfordshire quartet, but Harvey swiftly pegs them back with a starter of his own, and Holloway are five clear going into the music round.

No one gets the starter, despite some accidental conferring from Holloway after Cranfield skipper Stephenson had buzzed in with a wrong answer. Abramovich hears two-toed on the next starter and buzzes in with sloth, as any good quizzer should. What other animal is defined by its having two toes?

On a bonus about The Haunting of Hill House, Cranfield’s Chivers comes so close to the correct answer that it's such a shame to hear him say End instead of Hill, but them's the breaks. Holloway follow this up by giving sea urchin instead of sea cucumber, but that only has two words in total so it's less sad.

The second picture starter goes to Brown, who recognised a still from the Danish show Borgen. They clean up on the bonuses, and Paxman takes his chance to patronise them for knowing stuff about TV shows. I know it's his last season and all, but it should be pointed out that he himself is literally on a TV show at the exact moment he makes this comment.

On the next starter, which also goes to Brown, you can sense him gearing up to correct her pronunciation of Karamazov before she’s even finished giving her answer. She won’t care though, because Holloway are more than fifty points clear with only a few minutes remaining.

A late rally from Cranfield brings them above one hundred points, but Holloway aren’t threatened, and win by a clear margin at the gong.

Final Score: Cranfield 110 - 155 Royal Holloway

So, Cranfield not doing much justice to my selection of them to the Hall of Fame lineup there, but congratulations to Royal Holloway, who advance to the second round for the third time in three appearances. Here’s hoping they can go one better this time.

See you next time for Glasgow vs Queen’s Belfast, and as always, thanks for reading. Subscribe if you never want to miss a post, it really would mean a lot to me.