Named in honour of a former landlady of the Black Swan public house in Crown Street, and traditionally held on the Thursday closest to February 14th, last week witnessed the annual staging of the Mary English Valentine’s Day Memorial.

However, unlike previous runnings, this year’s was exclusively comprised of music tracks each containing some form of romantic theme. The songs cut across all genres from opera to rock and pop, country and western to punk.

The main venue, the Green Road Club (Kidlington), was appropriately equipped for the extravaganza with a super-duper sound system with lots of knobs and sliders. The other host, the White Hart (Eynsham), provided a child’s pink CD player. Fortunately, it had a pause button, expertly supervised by Trevor the Speller. Still, it proved to be no less effective.

Having plundered all five Tabletops this season, to everyone’s relief save their own, those two Wolvercote behemoths, the Plough and the Ploughman’s Bunch! failed to add to their tally.

Instead it was left to current Premiership frontrunner, the Royal Blenheim (Oxford City), to augment their own silverware collection.

With Victoria Coren’s favourite (Justin) missing and Nick the Thesp

(‘Egghead’s’ destroyer) not on song so to speak, it was Ben Stokes, Doc and the Vicar who set up a comfortable victory in the leg in Kidlington. Quickest out of the blocks, they established a healthy six point advantage by half-time.

During the interval we were treated to a vast smorgasbord of world cuisine: Chillies, curries, nuggets in spicy sauce and, for those with a more delicate palate, good ole’ sausage sarnies. A curious mix but nonetheless a delightful one.

The main threat upon resumption came from the host outfit. Sadly for them, round seven was a disaster and, from that juncture, plain sailing for the Blenheim posse who ended up on 127, ten clear of the home team tied with the Plough in second, and the Royal Sun (Begbroke) fourth.

Game, Set and Match one imagined, surely none of the sides in Eynsham could trouble such a formidable total, especially not with a pink CD!

But just as the Blue Boar Bees (Chipping Norton) had put the frighteners on the big guns seven days earlier in the Colin Ross up stepped the gallant White Hart to do likewise.

They were in devastating form but their score of 126 left them one agonising point short. Surely it has to be a matter of when not if before a lower league side prevails in these contests1

Runner Up to the White Hart, albeit by some distance, the Windrush Club’s performance is worthy of mention. The Witney team finished on 117 and thereby also staking a claim to second place overall.

1 Name the musical featuring the song I Get a Kick Out of You?

2 From the initials provided, name this UK No.1 hit, ‘W.Y. I. Love W. A. B. W?

3 Which song by Rod Stewart appears in the Top 60 of VH1’s list of the 100 Greatest Love Songs?

4 From this lyric, name the love song from the '80s: ‘I bought a ticket to the world but now I’ve come back again’?

ANSWERS: Anything Goes; When You’re in Love With a Beautiful Woman; You’re in My Heart; True