Monday 24 September 2012

University Challenge 2012/2013 - Match 9

University Challenge 2012/2013 - Match 9

As the year continues to fly be, so does the latest series of University Challenge and tonight saw an Scottish-Welsh affair as the University of St Andrews took on Bangor.

St Andrews
Ben Adams
Jim Parsons
James Gray
Andrew Newton

Bangor
Adam Pearce
Mark Stevens
Nina Grant
Simon Tomlinson

I think there must have been something in the water here as this was an odd sort of show!

Everything started fine as Simon Tomlinson got two early buzzes to give Bangor the lead but there then started a wave of wrong buzzes, guesses where you have to assume questions were misheard and it all culminated in a very sharp "What?" from Paxman which seemed to settle things down. James Gray, who captained very well tonight managed to get St Andrews going and the game remained tight throughout.

As usual the high quality picture rounds in this series of University Challenge continued with a tougher-than-I-expected sports pitches round and a round on Pop music, which I am usually strong at, that I found very hard indeed. The teams must have shared my view as few points were scored from either as the game remained tight with a 5 point lead to Bangor.

The Art round was as well very hard this week and the run of tough questions kept the scores very low indeed which was a little harsh on the two teams involved. A misheard answer from a team mate by Nina Grant, even though Paxman somehow heard it was just one of the odd things that started to happen after this. Mark Stevens, who showed great knowledge in the night, looked increasingly nervous as the match went on and he, and the whole team, mounted pressure on Adam Pearce in a round on Classical Music by doing an almost synchronised stare at him as soon as they heard the subject for the round. Talk about pressure!

A lot of points were lost on early buzzes tonight, a rather bizarre one when Tomlinson guessed at a question that was not even half completed when he could have listened to it all (Paxman did not miss out on the chance to mention this either!) but Tomlinson made up for it with two crucial late buzzes to take the team to a 125-105 win.

It is hard to say how far Bangor can go as the questions tonight were tough, reflected in the score but they have a mix of age, a seeming mix of expertise and this could see them pose a threat to anyone!


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