Once again, despite arriving early, we were not the first to arrive - Ireland's Terry O'Farrell, who had reached the semi-finals in Summer 2000, had arrived early (his flight from Ireland, paradoxically, having taken a shorter amount of time than his drive from the airport to the town centre), and we were soon joined by the favourite for the championship - Mr Julian Fell himself. I will confess that I didn't know what to expect when first meeting him, but he came across as a very friendly guy.
Soon enough, all the other competitors arrived, and Game One of the day was underway - Tom Hargreaves vs. John Rainsden, the winner, of course, facing me in the quarter-finals. In spite of John having a good track record, one of only a few #8 seeds ever to reach a grand final, defeating Kevin McMahon along the way, no less, he was no match for Tom, who scored an impressive 117 points in the slightly one-sided win. Next up was Julian vs. Terry, with everyone eager to see what obscure words Julian would come up with next.
...And the people were not disappointed, as Julian came up with a couple of wonderfully obscure words on his way to scoring 118 points in what was another one-sided game. Next up was the last of the heat games - Graham Nash vs. David Ballheimer, which was the first round match that stood out the most at first (with the exception of Wills vs. Williams) as being a potential classic.
While it wasn't the closest of games, with Graham winning comfortably in the end, it was still a good end to the first round - with eight games gone, there were only seven left, and only eight competitors left in the tournament. After managing to sneak into the photograph after the third show of the day was over, we made our way to the canteen, where food was once again to be eaten.
Game 4 of the second day was the first quarter-final- Chris Wills vs. Loz Sands. Fearing for the health of my back from the audience chairs, I observed Chris reach the semi-finals with a comfortable, if low-scoring (by Chris's standards, anyway) victory. Next up was my first (and only) appearance of the day - in the hot seat for the quarter-final between John and Rupert.
John won, ending the possibility of Wills/Stokoe 2 in the semi-finals, and with all the shows of the day filmed, it was back to the bar, where the conversation effectively picked up where it had been left off yesterday, with myself, Tom, Chris, Graham, Rupert and Damian discussing all aspects of Countdown, and Chris coming up with a conundrum he believed to be worthy of the Champion of Champions final... Which Damian solved in three seconds flat. As always, 11pm rolled around, and it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep prior to my early morning quarter-final (filming was due to start at 10:30am).
Of course, the sleep waited until I'd watched South Park, but still, it was another surprisingly restful night's sleep - perhaps it was just my brother who'd cursed me with poor nights' sleep the last two times I was there (it certainly was the first time...).
I rose at 8am, showered and shaved before heading down to the hotel lobby and eating breakfast with Chris and David Ballheimer - at least, I tried to, my search for some sugar to go on my corn flakes almost including a flight to Jamaica before Chris managed to root some out. Eventually, 9:30 rolled around, and we were at the studio, ready for the first game of the day - Tom vs. myself.
In my original experiences, I recalled meeting Tom for the first time after the final was recorded, and joking that maybe I'd play him in the Champion of Champions - the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for..."
I knew I was going to be in for a rough ride when Tom spotted PALINODE in Round 2 - I'd never even heard of the word. Fortunately, things improved slightly in Round 3 when we both spotted FACETIOUS - the only nine-letter word I'd ever spotted in all of my games, so that was one of my "goals" achieved in the championship - my prior lack of nines had been a source of major irritation for me, and getting a tough one like FACETIOUS was immensely satisfying. However, missing SEAMING in the very next round was not. I was 15 points down at the end of the first half - not out of it by any means, but it was the worst position I had ever been in during any of my games, and I knew it.
The second half contained many more good words, but then Round 9 rolled around. In the past I may have been lucky to have some words allowed (BONNIES springs immediately to mind, as does CRAZIES), but I feel slightly unlucky not to have OUTLANDS allowed - although, in saying that, I knew it was risky and I should have spotted UNSALTED as well. After an easy 6 small numbers game did nothing to reduce my deficit, I went into the third half a full 23 points down.
Rounds 11, 12 and 13 all saw me and Tom equalling each other's words, meaning that he was out of harm's reach by the last two rounds. However, I was still on 88 points, and a high losing score was a still a real possibility, which was part, if not all, of my decision to go with a simple one from the top for the final numbers. Unfortunately, the conundrum proved to be less simple than the prior numbers game, at least as far as I was concerned - I had just managed to turn WORDTHING into THROWDING by the point Tom buzzed in with the answer DOWNRIGHT, recording the third highest score in Countdown history, and what would prove to be the highest score of the championship. My winning streak had finally come to an end, but I didn't mind too much - I'd only really wanted to win at least one game, not to mention get the nine as well. 10 wins from 11 isn't too bad, is it?
Incidentally, a few weeks later, I was flicking through my copy of Spreading the Word when I happened across one of the conundrums placed in the book for a little mental exercise - and there it was, in black and white, WORDTHING. Hmm...
The next game of the day was the fourth quarter-final, Graham Nash vs. Julian Fell - the first "dusty carpet" match of the championship, so called because neither competitor had ever been beaten, having both won 12 from 12. Julian was expected to win this one, but no one expected for one second that Graham would be a walkover - maybe it was the shirt. And when Julian had GAMBIERS disallowed at the end of the second half, actually handing the lead to Graham (albeit by one point), the result was suddenly thrown into doubt. Graham and Julian matched each other right up until the conundrum, which Graham went into leading by 110 points to 109. A one-second conundrum later, and Graham was in the semi-finals, and the favourite was out - but with a score line of 120-109, and one of the best games of all time, let alone the championship. Next up was a brief break for lunch, before it was back into the studio for the semi-final games. I'd watched the fourth quarter-final from the comfort of the green room, but because the photos were due to be taken at some point that day, I had to be in the audience for the remainder of the matches, spine or no spine.
Semi-final number one saw Chris beat John Rawnsley comfortably, and also chalk up his third 120+ score of his Countdown career (although he did miss the conundrum, otherwise it could easily have been 130), while Graham beat Tom in the second semi-final, setting up the dusty carpet final between Graham and Chris - both having 14 wins from 14. One man would go away with 15 wins from 15, while one... wouldn't.
Considering the high scores that had been flying here, there and everywhere in the championship (a fifth of the games had produced scores good enough to qualify for the high score section of Mike Brown's website), the final was remarkably low-scoring - 79-73 to Graham going into the final numbers game, and, after his selection of "six tiddlers" yielded an impossible game, it was 79-73 going into the conundrum as well. The board flipped, and OVERSPADE was revealed. The clock ticked... and ticked... and ticked, until, eventually, time ran out. The conundrum was, in actuality, EAVESDROP, but I get the impression Graham didn't care much - "Who's the daddy!" and so forth. Next up was the final set of photographs, which, entertainingly, featured Graham and Chris holding the wrong prizes, followed by a buffet at the bar. We stayed for a while, but couldn't stay too long due to the train, so we eventually said goodbye to everyone, including the day's guest Eric Knowles, before heading back to North Hykeham.
As always, the visit to Countdown was fun, as was meeting all the former champions such as Graham and Chris - it's a pity I didn't win the actual championship itself, but I guess that's life - I had my moment, and I'm happy with that. And who knows, maybe they'll be recording some special shows in the near future...
Ben Wilson
[The second part of this article was written in July 2003]