Logan Skelton reports back from his nth Countdown tournament and his first Scrabble tournament

Twas the month of May, the time of year our football season comes to a close, 33 cars do 200 laps around a giant rectangle in the middle of ‘Murica (the Indianapolis 500), and the poor souls in schools have to take exams which may/may not determine their career paths.

But amongst all that happening, a tournament or two was taking place in the lovely little city of York, in the heart of northern England, and 42 players called to the challenge set by Mr. FOCAL Chairman, George Armstrong, in the quest to become CO:York champion of 2026.

As I (and a certain Mr Crabb) am unlucky to be Scottish, I had to take a four-hour train journey from my humble abode on the Friday morning – at least it wasn’t the overnight bus and back I took to Sheffield last year! When I arrived in the afternoon, the first thing I did was check into the hotel before heading out and enjoying the sights York has to offer, before getting supper and an early night in bed, ready for the events ahead.

Saturday saw the Countdown tournament itself take place, at Door 84 Community Centre, just a 10 minute walk away from my hotel! A who’s who lineup of elite Countdown (and Scrabble!) players turned up for a shot at eternal glory. Amongst the lineup was Scrabble master and paper plane enthusiast Stu Harkness, reigning FOCAL champ Dylan Taylor, reigning TV champ Jase Cullen, and a debut appearance for this year’s UK Open Scrabble champion, Brian Po, alongside the regulars such as MSR and Maus to name a few. This was also a special milestone for James Robinson, who celebrated his 100th CO:Event played, but to be fair, he only made the trek because his beloved Terriers were too low down the table to play-off for promotion, but still, a big congratulations to him! (UTMT)

Four rounds were played, with three games played on each table, in each round, as per the standard Lincoln/Edinburgh/3-at-a-table rules. The first round saw myself being drawn against octochamp Tim Down and classic series champion John Clarke. My first game was a routine loss for me against John Clarke, a relative newcomer to CO:Events, but still has the talent he had nearly four decades ago, and I thought I was dead and buried against Tim, but I managed to keep exactly ten points behind going into the conundrum of a back-and-forth affair, however I unscrambled CHOKEHOLD to take it to a tiebreaker, and nervously, I found NERVOUSLY to snatch one under Tim’s nose! A lucky win for me admittedly. Elsewhere, Richard Priest scored the highest score of the round with a 77 vs Donna Stanton’s 31, declaring MISNOMERS to eventually win the Best Word of the Day prize, and also won a close battle against Jason Turner (59-51), and Bradley Horrocks also won a tiebreak vs Matt O’Connor to also go 2-0.

Sadly after the first round, we had two early withdrawals, for personal reasons, which took us down to 40 (+ two Prunes). My second round opponents were X-Factor audition legend, Ashwin Abinashi and regular Teapot Trove lurker and Apterite, Sam Stock. Both games went to crucials, and I somehow won both, by doing absolutely nothing…(neither player solved either conundrums)…maybe I should change my name to Luigi…iykyk. Jase Cullen achieved the joint-highest score of the day with 82, vs Richard Priest’s 66 in an epic showdown, Bradley was close with 81 vs John Clarke, and Dylan scored in the 70s in both of his games (vs Stu and Phil Stanton).

There was supposed to be a quiz during the lunch break, however sadly this had to be scrapped due to time constraints…therefore I am forced to wear my heavy quiz crown for another year, no wonder my skull feels battered and broken!!

In the third round, I was given probably the toughest draw an average joe like me could get, Stu and Matt O’Connor, well, besides Jase, Dylan and Tim Hebbes being drawn against each other, oh fun! No surprise, I lost both, but not without taking Stu to a crucial, as we were both evenly matched in the first eight rounds, and neither of us solved the con, which took us to a tiebreak, in which I was caught up in Stu’s SNOWSTORM, however Matt dominated me in a one-sided affair, before my two conquerors had a fantastic 70-60 game! Ed Byrne (not the comedian) and Maus had an epic clash in which Maus edged the Irishman 77-73, before losing to Bradley 62-53. On the so-called table of death, Dylan had the highest score of the round by equalling the highest score of the day, of 82 points against Hebbes, who still managed to muster a decent 54, then scored 63, but still lost to Jase’s 73, before Jase himself lost to Dylan 71-55.

The fourth and final round came shortly after and I myself was up against Sam Manojlovic and Scrabble king Brian, whom I met for the first time. The OED was not kind to Po, used to the Collins Dictionary as opposed to Oxford, as many of his words declared against me were phoney, don’t worry, I feel bad for him too. I achieved my only nine of the day with ORDAINERS against Sam, however it was only 18 of the 38 I managed to score in a low-scoring affair vs Sam’s 28.

And so, after eight preliminary games each, the grand final was reached. Dylan Taylor swept all of them, and Bradley Horrocks pipped an elite group of contenders to second place to join Taylor in the showpiece match to determine our champion. Every neutral was hoping for this to go to a crucial, especially with it being nine rounds, but alas, Taylor had the game out of reach by the second and last numbers game, and was on a max game leading into the conundrum, however to everyone’s shock, he missed the conundrum after guessing CORPSTONE early. Bradley tried after with CROPSTONE but was also wrong , to which Tim Hebbes flipped in to declare STONECROP, and took the applause from under both players’ noses! So congratulations to Dylan Taylor on another CO:Event title, and well done Bradley on making the final. I myself was chuffed for finishing 16th with 5 out of 8 games won!

After that it was time for dinner at Ask Italian in a beautiful building – the York Assembly Rooms. So many of us went we needed two looooong tables to fit us all!

At this point this is where the activities would come to an end, and we’d all go on the trains/buses home on Sunday… but then James Burley ruined that as he hosted a Scrabble tournament, whatever the hell that is :P! The tournament was split into two groups, an A and a B division. For those unfamiliar with how it works, the A division is for the big boys, Stu Harkness and Maus included, and the B division was for the rest, including debutants like myself and Jason Turner, as well as George Armstrong who was the reserve player, but needed to play as there was an odd number of players. The first few games were random, and then we played people who’d performed similarly to us to hopefully get some really competitive games – if the tiles are forgiving! Seven games were played in total, with a lunch break after the third game. To the surprise of about two people, Stu came out on top in the A division, claiming the life-changing cash prize of £60! In the B-league, the FOCAL Chair went from reserve to champion, which included a total devastation of myself in our second game, in which he made five bonus plays to my one and scored over 500 points against me (jammy git!). It’s a different game but still quite a lot of fun – expect to see some more of us FOCAL folk crossing over in the months to come.

Personally, York was miles clear of Sheffield. The journey to and from wasn’t as stressful, the hotel was just fine and the venues were top notch. A big thanks to George Armstrong for hosting a fantastic CO:York event, Adam ‘Beachy’ Beach for assisting, and James Burley on organising a fantastic Scrabble tournament, and to all of the attendees over both events!

Here’s to more CO:Yorks for years to come!