University Challenge Grand Final

Tomorrow night, as many of you fine people will know, is the Grand Final of series 39/16 (depending on whether you lump together the Paxman revival with the original Bambi series) of University Challenge. It's between an Oxford side and a Cambridge team - St John's and Emmanuel, respectively. The former has such glittering alumni as A. E. Housman, Philip Larkin, Endeavour Morse, Tony Blair, and Victoria Coren (I think), while the other ... well, it's given the world Alex Guttenplan, the impressive team captain of the Emmanuel team who's been causing such an internet and media splash over the last few weeks.


So, whom to support? Well, since Guttenmania took off, in such disparate places as Arsebook, Internet forums, and the Daily Mail, most people appear to be supporting Emmanuel. I think St John's will win. Now, I have had some inside knowledge as to former matches played in the first and second rounds, thanks to my own involvement in the show, but I have to say I've not heard a dickie bird about tomorrow's match. And, I have to say, it looks to all intents and purposes as though it'll be a close-fought match.

But then this is just in keeping with the series as a whole, which has seen three (to my recollection) tie-breakers, and many matches where the margin has been a matter of a single starter and set of bonuses (or 25 points, to those not that au fait with the show). My own two matches were won and lost respectively by Loughborough with a margin of 30 points; having beaten UCL in the first round with 205-175, we then lost to tomorrow's finalists, St John's Oxford, by 220-190 (just to squeeze an iota's worth more fame from the incident, I should add that that is the highest losing score of this series). The very next match to be recorded, and aired, after our match against St John's was between our first-round opponents, UCL, and Emmanuel Cambridge, who won that match and are the other finalists in tomorrow's show.

Last week's match, which saw Emmanuel beat a good Manchester team by 315-120, was (I think) the biggest score margin (195) of the whole series, which has had few categorical defeats (St John's rear their clever heads again here, having beaten Durham 270-90 in the first round). This is nothing on last series, which really separated the men from the boys: take the quarter-finals, for instance. Well-known and -remembered is Corpus Christi's record defeat of the Exeter team with a score of 350-15 - that is the second-highest score margin, I think, since Open University beat Charing Cross 415-65 in the 1997-8 series, and Exeter managed a record lowest score. But in fact just the week before that, Lincoln College, Oxford had played Queen's College, Cambridge (who gave us Stephen Fry and Erasmus) and trounced them 335-50, which was at that time the highest score margin for quite a few years. Lincoln were favourites for the final thereafter, only to meet Manchester in the semis, and get trounced themselves, 345-30. Scores like that make even last week's match between Emmanuel and Manchester look close-fought!

So, call me perverse (I am), but I'm backing St John's, because whatever happens tomorrow night, the match will be a close one. Guttenplan is an excellent player, and so are his teammates, but St John's seem to be perhaps the most cohesive and balanced team in the competition this year. So tomorrow's final is a bit like last year's between Manchester and Team Trimble, otherwise known as Corpus Christi, Oxford: a set of good all-rounders against a good team with one particularly outstanding player. Last year (excepting subsequent stripping of honours) Corpus Christi raced ahead in the last ten minutes to win the final. This year, I reckon the collegiate shoe will be on the other foot. Yes, yes, I could be wrong. But, as I said, I'm perverse, so I don't mind.