Tuesday 16-01-2024 - 16:49

 

Here’s your starter for 10… who are the hopeful Lancaster students who performed best in this year’s University Challenge trials in a bid to represent Lancaster in next year’s televised show?  

 

 

In November, the Students’ Union held trials for the best and brightest students to represent Lancaster in the most fiendish of quizzing tests: University Challenge.  

After an evening of the toughest trivia, we are now happy to announce:

• Charley Butcher: Team Captain, Graduate, MRes Biomedicine
• Matthew Duffield: Furness, BSc Economics
• James Robinson: County, Astrophysics
• Eoin Neale: Furness, Physics
• Harry Nimbley: Pendle, Physics 

We are delighted to be supporting the group as our team of hopefuls for the televised show.  

Matthew and Eoin join the team having both sat on the two-year champion Furness College collegiate quiz team. The team became friends through their colleges, mutual friends and our Handball Club.  

We asked the team a couple of easier questions to get to know them. Here’s what they had to say:  

Are you fans of the show?  

Matthew: “I am a big fan of the show, I have watched it for many years and I always sat down on a Monday night with my parents and watched the show.”

Eoin: “Ever since I was a boy, I have always enjoyed watching the show and greatly admired all the players who take part.”

Charley: “I have been a fan of the show for years, and the idea of representing the Uni on such a prestigious stage is exciting, if not a little daunting.”  

How did you find the trials? Was it challenging?  

Matthew: “It was fun, I wasn't expecting it really, I thought we would turn up and there wouldn’t be questions but it did make me realise what topics I need to go over soon.”

James: “I also wasn’t expecting to quiz on the day, but I had a great time.”

Eoin: “I really enjoyed the trials, I always love getting to do a good quiz, but being on the buzzer was nerve-wracking as all the other teams were amazing.”

Charley: “I had a great time, the written questions were especially difficult but I knew my team were having fun, and that’s all that really matters.”  

What happens next for the team?  

“James is specifically revising music and literature; Matthew is spending a lot of time on Sporcle; and Eoin and Charley have been doing quizzes frequently to highlight weaknesses. We would love to come along to lectures in departments we aren't from in order to broaden our understanding.”  

What would it mean if you got to represent Lancaster on the televised show?   

Matthew: “It would be a great honour to represent Lancaster for the first time since 2019, being the face of Lancaster on television would be wonderful.”

James: “I have always regarded University Challenge as a really cool thing, it means a lot to me. It actually was the only thing I wanted to do at Uni; "you can keep my degree".”

Eoin: “to compete on University Challenge would be the realisation of a lifelong dream, to do this alongside my friends would be a memory I would cherish for the rest of my life”

Charley: “This community has been in my heart for an incredibly long time, and the chance to represent my friends and loved ones on TV, and on such a prestigious show as Uni Challenge, is a dream come true.”  

Our winning team now proceed to University Challenge’s own selection process as not every institution makes it to the televised shows each year. We are keeping everything crossed for Charley and the team and look forward to keeping you posted!  

Fancy seeing if you might have had what it takes? Here’s a few sample questions from the show just for fun:  

Q1: From Sanskrit meaning 'to fry', what short Hindustani word is used across South Asian cuisines to mean both a dry curry of stir-fried vegetables, and a fritter of vegetables in spiced gram flour batter?  

Q2: In different shades, what colour is the FIELD of all the following national flags: the Federated States of Micronesia, Saint Lucia, Palau, Somalia, and Kazakhstan?  

Q3: A product of its mass and the square of its distance to the reference axis, a body's resistance to the application of torque is known as its moment of...what?      

A1: Bhaji, A2: Blue, A3: Inertia