THERE was a break from league action last week with all the Premier Division and Section One sides congregating at the Green Road Club (Kidlington) in order to participate in the ‘21st Century’ themed Tabletop.

This particular topic was making its debut, designed to give added encouragement to some of the younger members of the quizzing fraternity.

Consequently, it was imagined that teams such as the Black Swan (East Oxford), with its burgeoning complement of youth, and the Royal Blenheim ‘B’, aka the ‘Young ‘Uns’ for obvious reasons, would be well-placed to shine, particularly in areas such as film, music and popular culture.

Clearly, no-one had shown the script to the Seacourt Bridge (Botley)!

Their ages demonstrably belie a collective youthful mind because by the end of round two they were joint leaders in the contest. They continued to hold their form together until the very last round where a few errors saw them slip to a still very creditable fifth place.

For the majority of the evening, control was very much in the hands of the Royal Blenheim ‘A’.

Missing a couple of key players, including the Vicar who has not been seen a great deal in this parish of late, but ably supplemented by the Doc’s girlfriend, they opened up a six-point advantage entering the final stages.

Such, however, is the cruel hand of fate. You can never write off the Plough (Wolvercote) in any circumstances. And so it proved here, as they posted a mightily-impressive 55 points in the last round, as opposed to the Blenheim ‘A’s 46 and thereby walked away with the silverware.

The North Oxford Conservative Club (Summertown) put their recent run of poor form behind them to finish third, the best-placed of the Section One outfits, with the hosts’ just behind in fourth.

For the Ploughman’s Bunch! (also Wolvercote), their miserable season continues, trailing in ninth of the twelve starters. It wasn’t so good either for those teams with age supposedly on their side.

The Black Swan could only manage 10th and the Blenheim ‘B’ 11th although their skipper, Hayesy, was very keen to point out to me that this was the first occasion that his lot had not ended up bottom in a tabletop.

The focus this Thursday returns to the league campaign and the 10th round of 14.

The stand-out tie is undoubtedly the one in Wolvercote where Premiership front runners, the Plough, entertain the Green Road Club, second in Division One and the bookies’ favourite to lift that title.

Defeat for the Plough and the Royal Blenheim ‘A’ could exact some revenge and go top, whilst a setback for the Green Road contingent would be by no means terminal but would end what has been a very good run of results of late.