Oriel lose in Open battle
ORIEL TEAM members faced the "ultimate challenge" on Tuesday night, as they crashed to a defeat against the Open University in the grand final of this year's Univeristy Challenge series.
Toby Cox, Robert Dougans, David Brewis and captain, David Stainer, despite a fine performance, lost out to a team of mature students who were, in most cases, old enough to be their parents. John Burke, the Open University team captain, praised the Oriel opposition but added, "In them, you're looking at potential rather than full knowledge!"
Clearly Lance Haward, age 62 and John Burke, 39, have had the benefit of "life-experience" and a number of past television quiz appearances. Burke, studying humanities, appeared seven years ago on Mastermind and Haward, a retired solicitor studying classical Greek, has taken part in a dozen tele-quizzes from Mastermind to Sale of the Century.
Burke certainly sees Lance Haward as something of a "semi-professional." He claimed that "Lance has done more quiz shows than Bob Monkhouse...he's a quizaholic!"
The outcome has provoked comments from some that success on Univerisity Challenge now demands a semi-professional experience of the quiz-show circuit rather than intelligence and exceptional general knowledge.
When asked how he intended to celebrate his victory, John Burke alluded to plans for an 'inter-pub quiz night' with friends... after finishing an essay on 'Industrialisation in Britain and America' that is!