Pub Quiz

Naturally when the Quizmeister at the Dartmouth Arms asked each team to choose a category for questions I made sure our team's category was Cardiff City FC. Naturally when he asked the question about where the Mighty Bluebirds (OK he didn't use that phrase, he is a Stoke City fan) originally played, where another sport was normally played, I gave the correct answer of Sophia Gardens - where Bartley Wilson's Riverside Cricket Club's football team first played in October 1899. Naturally the drunken idiot quizmaster said I was wrong and gave the answer as "The Baseball Ground" - former home, obviously, of Derby County. Why do I know these dull facts? Because I read fascinating books by Graham Lloyd and Richard Shepherd, of course, giving all these important bits of useful information. And a quick bit of reading of Graham Lloyd's Cardiff City's history (A Hundred Years of the Bluebirds) gives me the interesting information about where the confusion comes from: when Cardiff City moved into Ninian Park in 1910 they had to do a deal with the local Council so that the ground could be used in the summer off-season for baseball matches. There you go.

I knew I was right, and yet I was happy to keep my cool. Unlike another time when an idiot running a pub quiz in Highgate refused to accept my answer to his question about who had played for Scunthorpe United and captained England. My answer, Ian Botham, was both clever and correct, but he insisted I was wrong and that only Kevin Keegan was the correct answer to the question. Fool. I was quite embarassing (K tells me) in the manner in which I disputed this. But this was a long time ago.

I should add that the Dartmouth Arms is a very nice pub, with good food and a great fun quiz. The pub owner/manager who runs the quiz is actually extremely nice and very entertaining as quizmaster, despite supporting Stoke City. And I could tell from a mile off that as a kid he wore Adidas football boots. Which meant I got a point for that, even if I got none for Sophia Gardens: the correct answer. I may have already mentioned this... The image on the right is of Cardiff playing (Dirty) Leeds at Ninian Park in 1952. We hope to keep being Leeds 'bogey' side this Saturday, when we play them again at Ninian Park. I won't be there, unfortunately, but I will probably be listening to Richard Shepherd's commentary.