"... is the wrong answer." (again)

As an employee of Manchester University and occasional pub-quizzer, I had been following the fortunes of our team on "University Challenge" with some interest. Their progress through the various qualifiers, quarter finals and semi finals had been pretty remorseless, but having seen a similarly convincing performance from Corpus Christi College Oxford, I was not entirely confident that they would pull off a win in the Grand Final.

It was beginning to look as if the only way to guarantee a victory for Manchester, was to 'nobble' Gail Trimble, the Corpus Christi captain. Throughout the series, her breadth of knowledge and speed of recall had been exceptional, provoking press interest and some rather unattractive sniping across the media; some pundits seemed to have got their knives out simply because Ms Trimble had the gall to be a well educated young woman who wasn't afraid to show it. Her refusal to be dull-witted, shrill and objectionable clearly upset these people.

I missed the final and, even more annoyingly, heard the result before I'd had a chance to catch it on iPlayer. Manchester University had been beaten 275 to 190.

In the fashion of any fan, of any losing team anywhere, I muttered, "We was robbed."

It was some small consolation.

...and then it turned out that we really had been robbed.

One of the Corpus Christi team, Sam Kay, had not been eligible to take part; he had already left the University, and was working for accountancy firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers when the final was recorded. 

Oh dear.

The BBC snatched back the trophy, and have now declared Manchester as the winners by default. Not a terribly satisfactory end to what had been an excellent competition.

Ironically, on many of the programs, quizmaster Jeremy Paxman has launched the opening round with something like, 

"Right. You should all know the rules by now, so we'll get on with it. Fingers on the buzzers, here's your first starter for ten..."

It seems that you were wrong, Jeremy.