45 / 63
Class notes
UPDATE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS
Concordia
Merchant Taylors’ School
OMTwins University Challenge
When I was an A-level student at
MTS, I would sit in the Sixth Form
Common Room on a Tuesday morning
and compare my University Challenge
scores from the night before with a
number of my contemporaries. With
ten points for a starter and five for a
bonus question, anything over 100 was
deemed miraculous. A sad reflection on
the life of a 17 year old, perhaps, but in
hindsight it was early training for one of
the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had.
In my final year of medical school,
after five failed attempts to appear on
the quiz show, I received a call from the
producers, who, to my total shock, told
me that our team had been successful
in its application. What followed was a
mixture of excitement and mild panic
as I and three other students at Gonville
& Caius College rushed to fill the gaps
in our knowledge. We read up on the
solar system on Wikipedia, skimmed
“1001 Paintings to See Before You Die”
and loaded every Bach cantata we could
find onto our music players. Crucial to
our preparation was watching previous
episodes of the series together and
practising our buzzing by methods as
crude as simply hitting the sofa – the
pressure of even a fake interruption
makes the game significantly more
difficult than shouting answers at the
TV for every question, which was very
much my tactic when I was still at
Merchant Taylors’.
Anthony Martinelli (2003-2008)
is the first
OMT to win University Challenge. Here is his
account of his team’s success
The recording process itself took
place over three non-consecutive
weekends in Manchester – the long
northbound train journeys providing
a vital few extra hours to consolidate
our knowledge. Before our first match,
against St Anne’s College, Oxford, we
knew that we had a good chance based
on our preparation, but we thought it
would be a tight affair. As it happened,
despite an early scare, we managed to
progress fairly comfortably. I can clearly
remember the first time I buzzed in and
heard veteran voiceover artist Roger
Tilling announcing “Caius Martinelli” to
the room: fortunately, on that occasion, I
had supplied a correct answer.
The following weekends followed a
similar format, with the major change
being that the more matches we won,
the more confident we became. It was
after dispatching a good Durham
University team in our first quarter final
fixture that we first began to believe
we might have a shot at the trophy.
Highlights of the final few days of
recording included having my make-up
applied next to Jeremy Paxman (who
was nothing but civil to us throughout)
“When we entered the
competition I don’t think
any of us expected to win...”