A pub quiz team from Derby has been crowned the best in the country at the final of Britain’s largest pub quiz competition, run by pub company Punch Taverns.
After eight weeks of preliminary quizzes and regional finals across the UK, the final 25 teams battled it out in the national final of the Great British Pub Quiz, held at Molineux Stadium on 22nd September.
The Olympic Hide and Seek team, representing The Mason Arms in Derby, walked away with £2,000 from the competitions’ £8,700 prize fund – the largest ever amount given away by Punch Taverns.
The Olympic Hide and Seek team also won a ‘money can’t buy experience’, where four of the biggest brains in Britain will visit The Mason Arms and play the team in a special challenge.
All of the finalists went away with a range of cash prizes and a trophy from the hosts of the afternoon, Ted Robbins from ‘Phoenix Nights’ and Mark ‘The Beast’ Labbett from ITV’s quiz show ‘The Chase’ – who also wrote a round for the eight stages of the quiz.
The quiz, which was facilitated by Redtooth and sponsored by Carling, saw teams travel from as far as Aberdeen and Devon to compete at the national finals in Wolverhampton.
Team captain Charlie Barlow, who also runs the quiz at the Mason Arms, is proud of his team’s win: “I’m delighted to have won the competition and to be crowned the best pub team in Britain is a great achievement.
“The pub quizzes are really popular at the Mason Arms, they run the Punch competition on Thursdays and our own quiz on Sunday, which I am the quizmaster for.
“We have been in a team together for the last couple of years and as we are all local lads we regularly play together and compete in competitions. Last year we didn’t even make it past the regional finals so to go on and win the national final a year on is fantastic!”
Punch Taverns’ Executive Chairman Stephen Billingham, who presented the winning team with their prize, said: “This year, we have seen a record number of over 1,100 pubs registering to take part, including over 700 new pubs – that is more than the total number of pubs which entered the 2012 competition! This demonstrates what a great driver quizzes are for footfall and bringing people together in pubs.
“The year’s competition was extremely tough with only a few points between the top placed teams. We will be opening for registrations for the 2014 competition at this year’s Partner Roadshows in October and we are expecting even more teams to enter.”
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Punch Taverns is a leading pub company in the UK with approximately 4,000 leased and tenanted pubs nationwide.