The Final Starter

Jeremy Paxman signed off from University Challenge after last night's Grand Final with more than 950 matches under his belt. Another season would have pushed him over a thousand, but he decided that it was time to go. For nearly three decades he has been popping up on Monday evenings to pepper the brightest young quizzing minds in the nation with questions on the most baffling, obscure and arcane minutiae that science, history and art have to offer. He has done so with a caustic wit that has softened over the years; where previously he would harangue a poor, unsuspecting first year for guessing the wrong decade on a starter question, now he earnestly congratulates sides for losing in the quarter finals. He has been a fixture in my life in the same way Bamber Gascoigne was for Brian Jackson, the protagonist of David Nicholl's novel Starter for Ten, and I'm sure its been the same for many of you.

Aberdeen beat Birmingham 205 to 170 in his first match. They would lose on a tiebreak to eventual winners Trinity, Cam in the semi-finals. In the final that year Trinity scored 390 points all by themselves, which is more than the combined scores of any matches in the current series (which peaked at 380). This all the more remarkable when you consider that their opponents that night, New College, Oxford also scored 180. The questions were shorter back in the day, and Paxman's pace isn't as fast, but it still goes to show that there have been some small changes to the show over the years. For the most part, though, it has remained exactly the same. Starters are worth ten points, bonuses are five, and you lose five for an incorrect interruption. Two picture rounds and a music round. Very few things have changed so little in thirty years, but we're about to see the biggest one of them all now that Jez is hanging up his question cards.

There have been six winners from Cambridge, eight from Oxford and fifteen from neither. The winner of this year's final would become the fifteenth, with this the second consecutive year featuring no Oxbridge sides in the final. So without further ado, and for the last time under the stewardship of Jeremy Paxman, here's your first starter for ten.

The aforementioned match where the teams scored 380 points was in the opening show of the series. Durham beat Bristol 195-185. Unsurprisingly, given that it was a high enough score to win eight of the other first round matches, Bristol made it through to the second round via the playoffs, where they would handily beat Queen's, Belfast. Durham routed Bangor to join them in the quarter-finals, which Bristol sailed through. Durham had a bumpier road, losing to Royal Holloway, but they would avenge that loss with victory in the semis. A week later Bristol smashed Southampton to join them again and set-up a monumental rematch, giving the series a lovely, poetic, circularity.

Durham are Harry Scully, studying physics and chemistry, Chloe Margaux, studing sociology, Alex Radcliffe (C), studying maths, and Bea Bennett, reading English.

Bristol are Sam Kehler, studying medicine, Jacob McLaughlin, studying economics and maths, Tess Richardson (C), studying chemistry, and Alejandro Ortega, studying physics and philosophy.

Let's get on with it.

First blood to Durham. A superb early buzz from Scully on nuclear reactor. A tough set of bonuses on sci-fi results in one right answer. Bennett is delighted by her buzz of Charles II next time out, but again Durham struggle on the bonuses, laying a goose egg on the Turner Prize. Radcliffe is pleased they're winning the buzzer race, though he looks quite nervous, but when he gets the next starter he bobs his head up and down, finally easing into the contest. This is the equivalent of passing the ball around at the start of a football match to get everyone some easy touches. He's involved, and can settle down now. One bonus and they lead by forty.

Kehler gets Bristol rolling with Constantinople XI on the first picture round, and they raced through a hat-trick to claw back the majority of the deficit in a matter of seconds. They avoided the trap set by the question setters of assuming that a battle from 1066 was the Battle of Hastings, or perhaps they only knew that Hastings was on the south coast because of the previous set of bonuses given to Durham. It's probably that they just knew the correct answer anyway, unlike myself who indelibly and exclusively associates the year 1066 with Hastings, but it would have been odd had Hastings come up twice in such quick succession.

Another from Scully takes back the initative for Durham, and they seize the opportunity with a hat-trick of their own. Radcliffe wins them a bonus set on the B52s, which results in a couple of entertaining guesses. First Bananarama and then King Crab.

McLaughlin gets Rosen from a clue about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. A fun set of bonuses on triangular countries sees them take another hat-trick, but Radcliffe takes the music starter to stop them forming any kind of momentum. He comes out with the kind of sentence you only ever hear on University Challenge when Paxman tells him the bonuses are on orchestral works which make prominent use of the organ, 'My organ teacher is going to hate how few of these I get'. He's right, they get none. But no matter, because Scully is on hand again for his third ten pointer.

A brilliant buzz from McLaughlin keeps Bristol in it. Kehler then gets a question on flags which requires knowledge that in Gaelic, Duffy means black, Bowie means yellow and Flynn means red. He could have been guessing, I suppose, or maybe he only knew one of them, but what a bloody tough question and a great answer. Rewatching it this morning I still had no clue what the question was asking until I searched on Twitter.

They are now only fifteen points adrift, but Scully gets the second picture starter in half a second to hold them at bay yet again. He gets the next starter, too, in record time, buzzing after eight words. The bonuses are, quite literally, on rocket science. They take two.

A pair of similarly rabid buzzes from Kehler, and a no-nonsense four of six on the bonuses brought them back to fifteen behind. They knew that time wasn't on their side so raced through as quickly as possible, answering before Paxman got close to the end of the questions.

High on confidence from his previous two answers, Kehler buzzed in super early on what would be the final starter, only he gave the 400m instead of the 200m as the event featuring the famous black power salute at the 1968 olympics. Scully came in to sweep up the points, winning the game for Durham.

Durham 155 - 120 Bristol

Twenty three years after their previous University Challenge win, which itself was twenty three years after their first, Durham are once again Champions.

What a fantastic game to end Paxman's tenure, on. The final gap may not look the smallest, but it came down to the very last starter. Had Kehler been right, Bristol would have been five points down, with three starters available to tie things up or win it. Fine, fine margins. A brilliant end to a great series, and a fitting end to Paxman's career as presenter.

Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans, came out to present Durham with the trophy, saying 'I want to congratulate them for their brilliant brains. I hope they would use their brains to make our world a better place'.

Paxman signs off by saying that University Challenge returns later in the year, and that he looks forward to watching it with us. Goodnight.