Countdown Series 85 Runner-Up and upcoming CO:Warrington host Matt O’Connor reports back from out latest London outing

The second FOCAL event weekend of 2026 sees us making the trip to the capital and a whopping 56 in attendance (is this a record? [insert from George – it isn’t. London 2017 had 72!]) at the O2 Centre on Finchley Road, hosted again by Phil Stanton and very ably assisted by Adam Beach. It was also great to see a plethora of new attendees to a CO:Event, as well as Steve Aucello, who along with Andres Sanchez, made the trip all the way from the USA. On a personal note, looking at the competition for the day, I wasn’t at all confident of making it to my first CO:Event final with no fewer than seven different Countdown series Champions in attendance. As last year, we played seven 9-round games in Bristol format, this was following the customary practice round so everyone could get up to speed about how the game works. I particularly liked Phil’s choice of attire, his t-shirt reading “Trans Rights are Human Rights” – absolutely! Although there was some debate between the northerners, southerners and Americans about how to pronounce ‘trans’ following the practise round conundrum being TRANSPORT. [ BTW it’s not ‘trarns’ or ‘traaans’ ;) ] . Also a (not) fun fact – There was not a single 9 letter word available all day except for in the practice round.

With late entrant Ahmed not making the venue until half way through Round 1, the lucky contestant to get a Prune win against him was the aforementioned Steve Aucello. As a nice gesture for coming such a long way, both of our American attendees faced conundrums based around their names in Round 1 – MRAUCELLO and URSANCHEZ, with both contestants failing to solve them incidentally.

Once Ahmed arrived, he was pretty much the party spoiler considering he realistically couldn’t make the final due to missing a game, so the current Countdown series champion Jase Cullen was his first victim. After being defeated in a close game against another series champion in Round 1, Arthur Page, he unluckily drew Ahmed in Round 2 who was also on ‘zero wins’!

After winning my first three games, I then faced the would-be champion Matthew Brockwell in Round 4. Getting to the crucial conundrum, Brocky spotted ARABESQUE almost instantly. So my mission was simple now, win my remaining games. Hmmm!!! Last year’s runner-up, Ronan Higginson, was showing signs of being unstoppable as he had notable wins against T-Cap and Brocky in rounds 5 and 6 respectively. After the penultimate heat match, I actually found myself in second place (STOP THE COUNT!), however there was one game left to play, and of course it was against the unbeaten Ronan. After getting him to a crucial conundrum, my dream of reaching that elusive final was decimated in about 0.7 seconds when Ronan spotted CALABRESE. Brocky beat Ross King to also cement his place in the final.

The final itself was compelling. The first difference in scores came in Round 2 where Brocky went for a 9 declaring VETTURINO, which unfortunately for him was removed from the dictionary in the 2024 cull. Brocky recouped 7 points back from Ronan in Round 6 spotting MALLEUS. The pivotal point of the game was when Ronan missed a very gettable 1 large in the final numbers game (50 9 6 10 5 8 – 798) which he declared one away. Brocky scored the 10 points putting him ahead for the crucial conundrum. With the scramble being EASOLOCAB, Ronan buzzed desperately on around 28 seconds to guess CABALOOSE, which was so close (answer being CALABOOSE), so that meant Brocky took the title, his third CO:Event win, having won at St Albans in 2015 and CO:MSO in 2024. Ronan claimed the runner-up prize for the second year in a row. And Ahmed, although he missed an entire round, walked away with the 3rd placed piece of Kryptonite.

The event was impeccably hosted yet again by Phil Stanton and as ever Beachy needs no more plaudits for his faultless co-hosting. Well done guys and thank you, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day! I hope to see you all again at one of our future events, I’m actually entering the hosting field myself later this year so watch this space!