Grand Christmas Quiz 2016

Another year, another quiz.  I know you can’t wait to get started, so I won’t waste too much time on the preliminaries.  Two points are available for each answer, except where otherwise noted.  Answers to be revealed on 2nd January (probably).  First prize, as usual : a year’s subscription to the New Crimson Rambler.

This year I have broadened the scope a little, to include some questions about football, and, in a few cases, I have provided clues.

Q1  What do the following cricketers have in common?

a) A.C.D. Ingleby-McKenzie (Hampshire)

b) Dudley Owen-Thomas (Surrey)

c) Paul Franks (Nottinghamshire)

Q2  Who was the last Oxford Blue to appear in the top division of the Football League? (2 points for the player ; 1 if you don’t know the name, but can name the decade in which he first appeared.)

(The last that I know of – points will be awarded for any plausible later answer.)

Q3  This lady was the Mother of which future England cricket Captain?

Clue : her great-granddaughter is a well-known writer and art critic, and this is not her first appearance in this quiz.

Q4 The following is a description of a well-known cricketing personality’s debut as an entertainer :

“He basically trotted out a stream of lewd jokes and foul language. Some people found it funny, but there were plenty who didn’t.” Friends described it as “One of the major disasters of his life” and were “relieved and grateful” when it was over.

But whose?

a) Fred Trueman’s stand-up comedy routine in a club in Stockton-on-Tees

b) Colin Milburn’s turn as a DJ in the Turner Suite at Wantage Road

c) Lionel Tennyson, addressing the Mothers’ Union

Q5 The case of “the Lustful Turk” was a notorious breach of promise action, featuring the Mother of which cricketing personality as the plaintiff?

Clue : he was later supposedly blackballed by the MCC for having described her as “a kind of genteel courtesan”.

Q6  The following is an excerpt from the autobiography of which Warwickshire cricketer?

“Marijuana later crept into my life as an alternative to alcohol, which was starting to lose its appeal. Drinking alcohol on top of taking ecstasy allowed me to drink twice as much. Smoking marijuana was actually my attempt to rehabilitate myself.”

Clue : it is neither M.J.K. nor A.C. Smith.

Q7  Which English cricketer shared his name with a play by William Shakespeare? (2 points for the individual I am thinking of, but bonus points may be awarded for ingenious alternatives.)

Q8 The man in the hat was, for many years, Chief Scorer at Wantage Road, despite labouring under which handicap?

a) He gradually lost his sight, and had to have the play described to him

b) He was hopeless at maths, and always added the scores up wrongly

c) He was French

Q9  The urchin second from the left in the back row grew up to captain England at cricket, but who was he?

Q10  Which writer described which cricket tournament as being “widely and justifiably viewed as a civilisational nadir”?

a) Virginia Woolf, writing about the “Bodyline” tour

b) Clive James, about Kerry Packer’s WSC

c) Mihir S. Sharma, about the IPL

Q11  The Casuals XI of 1914 included two players of particular note :

a) (Front row, extreme left) captained Manchester City and England at football, won a Wimbledon doubles title, made a century at Lord’s, and once beat Charlie Chaplin at table-tennis using a butter knife.

b) (Back row, centre, in blazer) set a batting record that still stands, had a brand of whisky named after him, and was once accused of “Bolshevism” by Lord Harris for leading all of his side out at Lord’s from the same entrance. (He is shown here in close-up in a cartoon by Tom Webber.)

But who were they? (2 points each)

Q12  Alfred Stockwin, Northamptonshire’s groundsman at both the Racecourse and Wantage Road, once had occasion to pull a drayman down from his cart and give him “a good hiding”. But what had the man done to provoke this?

a) Watered the beer intended for the Pavilion

b) Suggested that Northants were not worthy of first-class status

c) Ridden his cart across the square

Q13  Three members of “the Establishment” on their way to see the Home Secretary. But who were they and what were they going to discuss? (1 point for each answer)

Q14  According to E.H.D. Sewell, the following were the nicknames of some then-prominent cricketers – but can you attach the right name to the right nickname? (1 point each)

Balmy ……………………………………… J.A. Bush (Gloucestershire)

Jungly ……………………………………….K.J. Key (Surrey)

Nutty ………………………………………. H.A. Gilbert (Worcestershire)

Fatty ……………………………………….. Father J.G. Grieg (Hampshire)

Frizzy ………………………………………. F. Martin (Kent)

Q15  Two cricketers, whose names will be forever linked – but who are they?  (1 point for the player on the right, 2 points for the other.)

Q16  True or false : the German writer W.G. Sebald was named after W.G. Grace, as a secret gesture of support for the Allied cause?

Q17  Which of the following has not, at some time, been the nickname of one of Market Harborough’s football teams?

a) The Huntsmen

b) The Cheesecakers

c) The Corsetmen

Q18  Who is the author of the hymn (no. 307 in “Hymns Ancient and Modern”, rev. ed.), whose first verse is as follows?

God, whose farm is all creation

take the gratitude we give;

take the finest of our harvest,

crops we grow that men may live.

Q19  The nine sons and three daughters of William Kingston, Headmaster of Abingdon House School :

How many of the nine sons represented Northamptonshire at cricket?

a) Three

b) Five

c) Eight

Q20 A fine player for Northamptonshire, a flat-mate of Colin Milburn, and a familiar figure at Wantage Road, who sadly died this year.  Who was he?

 

Happy quizzing, and a Merry Christmas to all my readers!