On Sunday 3rd February a team of Cambridge United fans took part in the ITV Digital Sports Channel quiz "Do I Not Know That!", hosted by former Brookside actor Simon O'Brien.
Each programme sees three teams of football club fans battle it out through four rounds, to see who has the greatest football knowledge. The points scored by each team in each programme are then entered into a league table, with the top four of each group going through to the next stage, with a chance of winning a dream holiday of a lifetime.
Club marketing assistant and team member Tom Bowran explains how the opportunity came about: "I got a phonecall late on Thursday afternoon from a researcher at Granada TV in Manchester pleading for my help. The show had been filmed throughout the season, starting in October, and although Doug Shulman had remained keen throughout this time, he had everyone else drop out of his team each time they were supposed to go to Manchester for a recording.
"Sunday was the last chance to get United filmed, and we were the only club out of all 92 English clubs, plus 16 Scottish Premier League Clubs not to have sent a team up there. So, I phoned around and as expected, it was too short notice for most people who already had weekend commitments, as well as going to QPR on Saturday. When I eventually got a team together made up of Club Shop staff past and present, who are all fans of the club, I called Granada back and they had a car sent to collect us from Loftus Road straight after the final whistle.
"We stayed in a fantastic hotel, with our evening meal paid for, and let's just say we had a great night out in Manchester. We also felt it our duty to introduce Marvin the Moose to those in our hotel, from security staff to the 50 or so people who posed for a photo in the early hours of the morning."
Marvin the Moose meets some new friends in the hotel bar in Manchester
With the team due at the studio at 8:30am, the late night probably wasn't the best preparation for the day that lay ahead, especially with the other teams having had experience before hand. Most teams record two programmes every time they go to Granada studios but, as it was the last day, the U's team had to do all four in a day.
"We had never even seen the show before so didn't really how to play each round effectively. We all got extremely tongue-tied under the pressures of being against the clock, being in front of so many cameras and of course in front of an audience eager to see how much football knowledge you have," admitted Tom.
Team Members from left to right:
Ralph Newbrook, Steve Cooper, Tom Bowran, Doug Shulman
stand behind show host Simon O'Brien and beanie Marvin
The Quiz is broken up into four rounds, as Tom explains:
1. HOME ROUND: This was knowledge on your club, from any date. You get 60 seconds to answer as many questions as you can, taking it in turns to answer with no conferring. You can't pass and have to give an answer. We were a young team with three of the four of us only really with ten years of knowledge of the club so we were a bit stuck on questions like "Who were our first ever league opponents?" and players transfers before 1990. But we still got a few. We had to do a lot of guess work in those rounds! I feel sorry for Steve Cooper because in his first game he got some really stinkers every time which no-one knew so he ended up getting everyone of his questions wrong! He was also off form in other ways, from a mixture of the night before and nerves (Read into that what you like!)
2. VIDEO ROUND: You get 30 seconds of video footage from three different matches from around the globe. No pencil and paper to make notes. You then get 30 seconds of questions to answer as many as you can. It was harder than it sounds because the pressures of time and the nerves make you forget things and give poor answers. But we still did fairly well at it. It was a mixture of observation, memory and general knowledge.
3. SPECIALIST SUBJECT: One team member has to go onto the "Penalty Spot", the lights go down, the spotlight is on you, and you have 60 seconds to answer as many questions on your specialist subject as you can. For most teams this was fine because they had weeks in advance to swot up and learn their stuff, but we only told them what our specialist subjects were on the Friday morning, with no time to get the books out or anything! This is where we felt quite hard done by really. We gave quite broad subjects like "United under McFarland", "United under John Beck", "The Promotion Season Under McFarland" and "United transfer activity from 1991 to the present day".
Doug was a real star with his Roy Mac promotion season knowledge, and I did OK with the transfers, but the other two, in such short notice did not have much of a chance and the scores reflected that. A guy from Scunthorpe blew everyone away with questions on "The FA Cup 2nd Round 2001-2002". He must have swallowed every newspaper because his knowledge was awesome. Knowing goalscorers, venues, the lot! He'd clearly had time to study hard, which he admitted to!
4. BUZZER ROUND: Fingers on the buzzers, interrupt the quiz master if you like! Fast and furious general knowledge football questions, but we didn't have a chance when it came to the Scottish Football questions! It takes a while to get used to, and to have a chance you really do need to buzz before the question ends. Some of the Scottish football questions brought a deathly hush though if a Scottish team wasn't in the game. In their first game the United team initially did really well, leading the game with one round to go.
"We came a bit unstuck with the 'Buzzer Round', said Tom. "We were up against Hearts and Rangers in our first game, and found out that Scots know more about the English game than we do about theirs! We felt a little hard done by and we didn't get a point because there were a lot of Scottish questions in there, and the two Scots teams used their experience of having played the game before to get in their first. I think we just froze a little and didn't get on the buzzer once! After leading by a couple of points we ended up about 10 points behind."
Talking about how it felt to compete on a TV quiz show, Tom commented, "The pressure of the cameras, audience, the time constraints and everything else is amazing. It's the strangest feeling I think we've all ever had, and you just lose the plot a little and say some really poor answers. We were not allowed to pass, so you just have to say a name or answer to move on to the next question, but even this seems hard!
"At one point, I was completely lost for an answer to give, with Simon O'Brien saying 'Just say anything Tom to move on'. At this point I just couldn't think of a thing to say, I could see my stunned, open mouthed expression on a monitor in front of me and even found I wasn't breathing!
"I blurted out an answer which, when fans see the show, will make them think 'What an idiotic answer!'. I think the question was 'Who did United sign from a club in 1992 and sell him back to the same club seven months later?' I just froze, couldn't think of anything, then said the first name to come into my head...ANDY DUNCAN!
"It is so bizarre how you mind just gives up! When you hear people say 'It's much easier doing it at home instead of being there', they're only too right. We were no world beaters but had a great day out and certainly don't anticipate going on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire!' We enjoyed a chance in a life-time experience.
"We are indebted to Chrissy Devas of Granada TV who looked after us superbly all day, as did the rest of the crew and our chauffeur Peter who had the unenviable task of taking us all home: Manchester, Loughborough, Cambridge and South London, all on a wet Sunday night!"
The shows featuring United should be on in a couple of weeks, but you can find out at http://www.itv-digital.co.uk/itvsportchannel/doinotknowthat.html and follow the FIXTURES link each week.
Ready for action: the team at their desk on the set
Previous Main Features:
02Feb02 - A Week In The Life of PR Manager Graham Eales
20Jan02 - U's Players Get Darth Vader Treatment
13Jan02 - Kit Carson Explains His 'Head of Talent Development' Role
05Jan02 - Dale Brooks Enjoying New Role
04Dec01 - U's Players Try Out Premiership Physio Machine
10Nov01 - U's Launch New Away Kit
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