FOCAL Chair George Armstrong reports back for the last time this year

What a year it’s been at FOCAL! 22 tournaments held across 17 locations, from old favourites like Lincoln and Rugby, to new locations such as Tunbridge Wells and Stockport. You can remind yourself of your favourite moments by going back over our blog posts, but for now, let’s focus on our final outing of the year, the Milton Keynes Finals and Open…

Despite some absolutely miserable November weather, 44 eager Countdown fans arrived ready for a day’s anagramming fun. We had our 8 well deserving FOCAL Finalists – Dylan Taylor, Thomas Cappleman, Matthew Brockwell, Tom Carey, Tim Hebbes, Adam Latchford, MSR and Dan Byrom, all fighting it out to see who’d walk away as the year’s Champion. Plus 36 more competing for our Milton Keynes Open trophy.

Despite hosting these tournaments for over six years now, it’s the first time I’d hosted Bristol style, and what a time to break that duck! Thankfully the group had enough patience, and with Beachy by my side operating the computer it all ran smoothly. Round 1 allowed everyone to get the grips with things, before we had a whopping 10 max games (5 of which were double max games) in Round 2!

A break for lunch – and a break in the clouds – allowed some of us to descend on the local McDonalds, where I sat with a few guys who were revising nine letters words on their phones. One of the obscure words to crop up was TREPONEMA – a type of parasitic or pathogenic bacterium. Lo and behold – that word randomly came out in the first letters selection in Round 4!

The rest of the day unfolded with less random coincidence, and at the end of the seven heat games, Dylan Taylor and Thomas Cappleman found themselves 1st and 2nd in the standings, mirroring their position in the League Table, and Tom Carey claimed the 3rd place trophy. Meanwhile in the Open, Rob Foster claimed his third Open victory, remaining undefeated throughout the day, with Ronan Higginson and Tom Stevenson filling out the podium – well done to all six!

Despite being the two strongest players thorough the year, and winning 13 tournaments between them, Dylan and Thomas hadn’t appeared at the same tournament since the initial weekend in Lincoln – and only played each other once over the weekend, with Thomas winning 73-63. Dylan got revenge for that defeating by winning 67-63 in the Round Robin this time around, so predicting the winner of the Grand Final was anyone’s guess!

The game opened with both players spotting a 6 letter word, before Dylan took the lead with a declaration of SANTOUR – an Indian musical instrument. Another 6 each, before an impossible 6 small saw Dylan hold the lead at the halfway stage. He went further ahead after spotting NEGATORY in one round, and with Thomas opting for a no longer valid LEAFDOMS, the game was effectively over. Dylan unscrambed the conundrum REALCOMBO to give ROCAMBOLE – a garlic-like plant also known as sand leek – to claim the overall victory and with a max game to boot!

The evening hit, and some of us opted for a delicious sit down curry, and some for a Chinese/Japanese offering complete with a private karaoke room! Musical highlights included Vengaboys’ We Like To Party, Roger Miller’s King Of The Road as an homage to our good friend and CO:Event regular Ashwin Abinashi, and Europe’s The Final Countdown as an appropriate final song of the day.

Finally, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who’s attended or organised an event with us this year, and thanks to CREST IT for sponsoring the event. Whether you’ve come to 100 events or just one, we at FOCAL appreciate the time and effort you all put in, and here’s to more to come in 2026!