1)England scored thirteen tries in their five Six Nations games of 2024,just as they had in 2023.Three of these came in the thrilling improbable extra time win against Ireland at Twickenham. Your first question will be decided in Dublin where scoring as many as three might be more difficult against a side beginning their defence of the Six Nations title. Form students will note both teams played New Zealand in November. Both lost but England’s was the closer game. Perhaps the Irish are on the slide.
2)The SUPER BOWL is a match between the champions of the NFC and the AFC so it’s a 50/50 choice. The 2024 version was won by the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFC, bringing joy to top fan Taylor Swift.2025 sees a return to its favourite location, New Orleans. It’s very early in the season but at the half way mark, there’s only one side with a 100% record. The Chiefs.
Are you going to bet the house on a Kansas threepeat?
3) Dubbed ‘the FA Cup of darts’, the UK Open takes place over one long weekend at Butlins in Minehead. It often generates surprising moments with outsiders reaching the latter stages and several big names falling early. If you opt for a British winner, you’ll have approximately two thirds of the competitors on your side. These include World No.1 Luke Humphries (who has been winning major titles regularly over the past year) and the rapidly-rising teenage star Luke Littler who is bringing the sport onto the front pages with his incredible rise to stardom. If you go overseas, you’ll have 3-time winner Michael Van Gerwen, defending champion Dimitri Van Den Bergh and another rising Belgian star Mike De Decker in your corner. The past ten tournaments have seen a 5-5 split of champions and seven of those finals have actually been British vs Overseas, so it tends to be an event that keeps everyone interested until the last few moments.
(Neil Southwood)
4/5)The Champions Trophy is 2025s international 50 over cricket competition and the most obvious form tips come from the 2023 World Cup. It was hosted by India but Australia spoiled the Indian party by winning the Final. South Africa and New Zealand were impressive till their semi final defeats. Afghanistan astonished with their skills; England astonished with their ineptitude and left it late even to qualify for the Champions Trophy which involves only the top eight sides in that World Cup. No Sri Lanka, No West Indies. Pakistan are the hosts but are in dreadful form.
England are guaranteed only three innings. To earn extra chances, England will have to beat either Australia or South Africa. Covid means this is the first Champions Trophy since 2017.Ancient history perhaps but the two England centurions, Root and Stokes, are still very much on the scene.
6)Quiz HQ has finally flown the white flag about the Irish dominance at Cheltenham where the invaders now regularly win far more than half the races, some days a clean sweep. Eight of the last ten Gold Cup winners have crossed the Irish Sea on their way to triumph. The question this year is on the winner’s margin of victory, more or less than two lengths. This can change dramatically as the horses climb that final hill as a tiring horse comes back to the field, an apparently beaten horse finds a second wind. In 2024, the race was won by the 2023 winner Galopin des Champs and though Galopin’s winning margin was halved from 2023,it was still comfortably more than the two lengths of the question. Mildly encouraging to see British trained horses finishing third, fourth and fifth though well behind the Irish one-two.
7) Q7 Hard to pick the top points scorer, even harder to advise. Sexton and Biggar are gone for the Greens and Reds and have no set kicker as yet. Finn Russell for Scotland, Marcus Smith for England and Ramos for France, should be in the mix but Les Bleus dont always pick Ramos because his defence is poor but he can boot it over from just about anywhere and he did win it last year. Take a pin!
Q8 Let’s do the easy bit first. Italy and Wales are simply not good enough this year. Italy are improving and might win one or two games, whilst Wales are rebuilding from scratch and could win the wooden spoon. The Scots will entertain, with Finn Russell pulling the strings, but it is questionable whether their defence will stop conceding tries. However, a vote for the Scots would not be totally daft. All the Celtic Nations are on a global search for ancestral haggis eaters, tenor voices and Guinness drinkers to improve their pool of quality rugby players. With far bigger playing pools England, Ireland and France should fight it out. Having only lost three out of thirty-five Internationals before the Autumn Series, Ireland have just lost three of their last six games. No Johnny Sexton, fewer victories it seems. Antoine Dupont is back and working his magic for France. Like England the French will have three games at home but they are notoriously poor travellers. The French don’t like Dublin or Twickenham, which is where they are off to. Fervent England fans will lament five defeats on the bounce but all have been lost in the last quarter of the matches and by tiny margins. Old School fans would like the English Captain to be on the pitch for more than fifty minutes and a coach who realises that momentum in International Rugby is everything and subbing too many players at three quarter time, whatever the state of the game, won’t win you many prizes.(BOB BREWER)
9)National Hunt horses tend to be at their peak aged eight or nine, providing eight of the last ten winners of the Cheltenham Gold Cup(the other two were younger.)Grand National winners have tended to be older (whisper it, experienced handicappers or class horses on the slide.) It’s certain that you’ll have more nine-year olds running for you than any other age group. Until 2022,the last six National winners had all been either eight or nine. Not since the Second World War had a horse younger than eight won the race but Noble Yeats, one of the only two seven year olds in the 2022 field, saw the history books rewritten. The 2023 winner Corach Rambler was among the many nine year olds in the race but the next three home were younger. And this trend was confirmed with the eight year old winner of the 2024 race, I am Maximus. Maybe as the fences get easier and the number of horses running shrinks, owners are more willing to risk their rising stars.
10)Though the racing eights of Oxford and Cambridge women have rowed against each other since 1935(Cambridge 48 Oxford 30), only in 2015 did they row on the same day and over the same course as the men. It will take a brave quizzer to punt on Oxford for in 2024 the Cambridge women’s boat won the race for the seventh consecutive year. What made it more galling for Oxford was that they were the bookies’ favourites yet lost by a whopping seven lengths. Perhaps though the tide is turning for the reserve race was won by Oxford and the reserves frequently provide the basis for the following year’s crew.
11)There are fewer players, more seniors, and more amateurs in the Masters than in the other slams. The tough course, the slick greens bring even the form players back to earth at some stage of the weekend so most Masters are still wide open coming down the 72nd hole. Scottie Scheffler had a four- stroke margin in 2024.Historically this is a wide margin, but it was the second year in a row that it was four and a comfy win. Will you be sweating on a tricky four footer on the 72nd?
12)In 2024, the Quiz target was 2 hours 18 minutes. You’ll notice the target has been reduced by a whole minute. Two reasons for this misogynistic onslaught. The 2024 London winning time was 2 hours 16 minutes and bits. Then last month in Chicago, a Kenyan beat 2 hours ten minutes, a whole seven minutes faster than the target though unlike London that was a mixed race. As you decide on Yes or No, beating the target will be among the 25 fastest women’s marathons of all time. It may all depend on the strength of the field, the pacemakers and of course the weather.
13)Every four years at the Winter Olympics, telly watchers are enthralled by chess on ice, otherwise known as curling. Then we take no notice for another 48 months, though there’s a World Championship every year. The 2025 Mixed Doubles will be held in Canada; one man, one woman from each of twenty teams. Six nations have won since the first Mixed Championship in 2008.Switzerland are fearsome with seven wins; the holders Sweden have won twice, as have Scotland, Russia and Hungary. The one mighty curling nation missing from the list??Canada and as you now know, Canada are the hosts in 2025.
14)Keep hearing that snooker is a world game with rising stars from China threatening the established British domination? Evidence in lesser tournaments but in the biggest tournament of the year, you had to go back to 2010 to find a World Champion from outside the British Isles before Luca Brecel of Belgium became the first ever winner from mainland Europe. Luca became the first first timer to win since Judd Trump in 2019.The 2024 Final saw two first timers battle out the Final with England’s Kyren Wilson coming out on top. If you go FIRST TIMER again, you will have 24 chances; those who chose FORMER will have eight at best though Ronnie, youngest and oldest Master Champion will be on your side.
15)Can anyone stop Chelsea? Their incredibly successful manager Emma Hayes may have departed for the USA last summer but the London club’s recent domination of the Women’s Super League could well continue given their 100% winning start to the season after seven games. Manchester City narrowly missed out last season on the final weekend and will be striving to go one better this time. If their main goal scorer Khadija Shaw stays fit, City have the firepower to push Chelsea all the way. Arsenal and Manchester United are both difficult to beat and may yet cause a few upsets by the time we reach May.(Neil Southwood)
16)No use expecting shock winners in the modern F. A. Cup, though the elite clubs often play with understrength teams in early rounds. Since 2013 Wigan underdog triumph.only relative outsiders Leicester have broken the run of wins for the big bullies, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and the two Manchesters. It felt like a shock result when United beat their rivals from the blue half of the city.
United’s 2-1 win was the fourth such scoreline in the last eight. Four have been won by a single goal, including Leicester’s 2021 win. In 2022 it was Liverpool’s turn to extend the domination of the elite but you waited 120 minutes without a goal before a penalty shoot out decided the matter. Recent history suggests no goal fest if you ignore City’s 2018 demolition of Watford. Three Finals have been settled in extra time but remember this prediction is based only on the first 90 minutes.
17)On 20th November, Liverpool were five points clear of Man City, nine points clear of Chelsea,Arsenal,Forest and Brighton. Three more teams are only a further point behind.So an unusual Premiership with so many teams squeezed together. Will Liverpool continue to romp clear with City and Arsenal in poor form? I love this type of question. On the last afternoon, there can be a six point swing, perhaps even in extra time.It’s a long time till May.Quiz Tips will
redraft several times before your day of doom,Jan 31.
18)Never a big fan of Formula One and it’s been easy to ignore the noise and hype as Max Verstappen and his Red Bull dominated over recent seasons. And for the first seven rounds, all of which Verstappen won,2024 looked like a predictable sequel. The Red Bull train came grinding to a halt in Monaco where Max could could only finish sixth. None of the three British drivers finished on the podium but in 2025 Hamilton will be in a Ferrari which finished first and third in 2024.Since Monaco, Lando Norris has won five races and is the fast rising F1 star; George Russell has won twice in his McClaren. It’s easily possible that these three will provide a British clean sweep of the podium.
19) . Three British clubs are still in with a good chance of reaching the knockout stages of the Women’s Champions League. Chelsea and Manchester City both top their respective groups with three wins out of three, while Arsenal are currently in second place battling it out with Juventus to reach the quarter-finals. We’ll know whether all three are still involved by Christmas. A British team last reached the final in 2021 when Chelsea were thumped 4-0 by Barcelona but they have been regular semi-finalists in recent years. Arsenal last reached the semis in 2023 and Man City in 2018. Can any of them take that final step this season?(Neil Southwood)
20)The Champions League has a different format this year.Instead of eight groups of four,playing the other three teams home and away,there are now 36 teams in the running,playing eight different opponents,four home ,four away. But all organized in one table where the top eight go straight through to the knockout phase.Teams 9 to 24 will go into a two leg knockout playoff with the winners making up the last sixteen,which thanks be will mean that after Christmas,the tournament will revert to the pattern we know and sometimes love.You’ll notice that the solution offered to exhausted,exploited millionaire footballers is to make them play more and more often.Sport will finally eat itself
All four English teams are in the top 12 with Liverpool the only team of the 36 to have won all four but early days.This Quiz Tips will certainly be updated.
21)The Q21 focus is on the British players in the singles draw. A punt on a British singles winner would be quixotic; making the last 32 is a more realistic target.
In 2024 there were eleven Brits in the mens draw, with Jack Draper seeded to make the third round. Only three of the eight were in the draw by ranking; eight were wild cards. Three made the second round; Draper and Norrie were drawn against each other so that ensured one Brit in the third round. The other was drawn against Djokovic; good luck with that.
Two British women qualified by ranking, with Katie Boulter seeded to make the third round; four made the main draw with wildcards. One, Sonay Kartal, more was left to fight her way through the qualifying rounds. As in the men’s, our seed met another Brit in the second round. As in the men’s, the seed lost but that ensured a second Brit in the third round. Sonay also made the third round as did Emma Radacanu who was the only Brit to make the last 16.So 2024’s answer was FOUR, which would have been an optimistic shout.
2025?Radacanu and Draper both seem to be injury prone; Boulter has had a disappointing Autumn. We can assume though that Wimbledon will again be generous with wildcards for home players.
22)The 2024 Women’s Final was only the eighth three set Final this century. In the 2010’s, the second and final set twice saw a 6-0 score line, a bagel in tennis slang. So the Final is frequently disappointingly one sided; one player turns up nervous or drained after six matches in the previous ten days. There’s hardly time for a second bowl of strawberries and a Prosecco.
Let’s hope for another cracking three set Final in 2025
23)In 2025 as last year, the big backstory will be the titanic struggle between the established American and European Tours and LIV golf, backed by the Saudis and their billions in oil money; on the morning after Trump’s re-election, Rory McIlroy emerged from the wreckage to say he believes Trump can sort it. Trump says with his Art of the Deal, it would take 15 minutes. Nearly 80 million Americans say they believe everything he says.
American, Xander Schauffele, won the 2024 Open by two shots. The top twelve contained five Europeans, only four Americans and three from elsewhere, in quiz terms, OTHER. Sounds fairly even??Americans have won five of the last ten Opens, Europeans only four.
24)There was only one British winner on the 21 stages of the 2024 Tour. It was Mark Cavendish, breaking the all-time record for career wins. Having made more comebacks than Sinatra, Cavendish seems to have finally retired. Your hopes of a British stage win may rest with the Yates twins, both previous winners but now in their thirties, or Tom Pidcock, twice Olympic mountain bike champion. Perhaps one of the many promising British youngsters may get a slot in a top team and snatch a breakaway win.
25)For the 2025 Quiz HQ has again selected the Polka Dot jersey for the Quiz question this year. Between 2020 and 2022 the jersey was won by riders who also won the yellow jersey.
2023 though saw a return to the old pattern with the Italian Ciccone racking up points on smaller climbs and could then pedal quietly home watching from a distance the GC riders fighting out the stage finishes high in the Alps or Pyrenees.
The 2024 yellow jersey winner, the astounding Slovenian Tadej Pogacar won five of the six mountain stages but this was not enough to hold off the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz who won the sixth and picked up stacks of points on intermediate climbs. France have not come with a mile of winning their home Tour for a long time but have won the Polka Dot 7 times in the C21.Poland, Colombia and Spain have also triumphed recently. Let’s hope for a romantic winner from outside the big GC battalions.
26)WOMENS EURO WINNER.
27)ENGLAND GROUP POINTS
28)ENGLAND GOLDEN BOOT
England’s win in the 2022 Women’s Euros was the best English result in an international tournament since 1966.The team won all three of their group games(Q27)as they did in the 2023 World Cup. Fourteen goals scored, none conceded. No wonder we were excited!
(The 2025 draw has yet been published. Perhaps there will be more challenges.)
Two of their three knockout games went to extra time; no easy games against Spain, Sweden and Germany in the Final. Mean in defence(only two goals against),free scoring(22 goals in the tournament).Nine players scored a goal with Beth Mead sharing the Golden Boot with six.(Q28)
It would be lovely to approach 2025 with equal optimism. The brilliant Dutch manager from 2022,Sarina Wiegman remains, as do most of the players. The performance at the 2023 World Cup was masterful, until the Final. The Lioness’ 1-0 defeat to Spain seems to have disrupted their confidence and rhythm. Defeat to top sides, struggles against lower ranked teams, second to France in their qualifying group; the team won’t have home advantage in Switzerland. Retaining their title will be difficult.(Q26)
29) What’s this, Quiz HQ setting a Hundred Question? The Quiz CEO and his chief reporter have been wandering round for four years wearing anti Hundred T shirts; they refused to watch, listen to or read about any Hundred match. If you quizzed them, these cricket anoraks could not tell who played for which team. It’s a format whose main selling point is to give you 16% less cricket than the County T20 tournament; by next summer, most of the teams will be a subsidiary branch offices of Indian franchises.. I loathe it still but some at least is on terrestrial TV and many of you quizzers watched it. So I have set you a 50-50 question on the Women’s Final and one thing that even Old Grumpy Sned cannot deny; the Hundred has done a lot to raise the profile of Women’s cricket. The statistics show that the side batting second won 63%.The captain who won the 2024 toss pondered on these statistics and chose to field first. Her team won but it was close; only two balls to spare. Runs on the board say us greybeards on the boundary, but what do we know?
30)The British Speedway GP comes back to the Cardiff Arms Park, far from its heartlands on the big Polish tracks,In 2024,Britain’s big hope Tai Woofinden,three times World Champion,was missing through injury.The home challenge was left to youngsters,outsiders.It was not plain sailing;there was much nail biting in early rounds but two Brits,Dan Bewley and Robert Lambert made the final and to Welsh whooping ,finished first and second.Will you be going YES?The future of British speedway looks promising in Dan and Robert’s hands.
31)The first T20 Blast was back in the Stone Ages or 2003 to be precise, but in the supposedly fuddy duddy world of English cricket, it feels an eternity, a dinosaur in the world of the Hundred and its eight franchises. TheT20 Blast is safely back to its traditional place as the end of term party in September, a must for all those who love to dress in zany costumes and cheer on their heroes, even it’s only triumph in the mascot race. Still, all eighteen counties will set off feeling they can win; after all, there have been 14 separate winners of the 22 tournaments. Gloucestershire are the holders, winning for the first time in 2024;Leicestershire are the only team to win three times. But for those looking for history, the four teams still looking for a first win are Derbyshire, Durham, Glamorgan and Yorkshire.
32)Great Britain won ten medals at the 2023 World Championship. None were in the field events-it’s rare to find a Brit throwing objects like javelins, discus and shot putts and are less and less competitive in jumping events, though KJT’s heptathlon gold involved both. Any Brit running more than a mile is fated to be a plucky loser since Mo retired. Nine of our ten medals involved running distances between 100 and 1500 metres. In Paris, Britain collected a full set of medals at 800 and 1500 metres. Georgia Bell won 1500 m bronze,2023 World Champion Josh Kerr felt disappointed with his 1500 silver and in one of the most assured winning performances of the Games, Keely Hodgkinson won 800 m gold. All three will be in contention if fit and in the background several more contenders like Laura Muir
33)Great Britain won bronze medals in1500 m four of the five relays at the 2023 World Championships, only missing out in the men’s 4×100.In Paris, the team went one better with medals in all five relays, with a silver for the women sprinters. A lot of money has been spent on making sure the baton gets round. Some of the British relay runners will be specialists who do not compete in individual events so GB tends to punch above its weight though the fight against the United States for top spot is usually a losing one if their galaxy of interchangeable talent gets the baton round safely.
34)KJT won the heptathlon gold at the 2023 Worlds, a fingernail ahead of rising American star, Anna Hall, and well ahead of the Dutch athlete, Anouk Vetter, in bronze. Europe did even better at the Paris Olympics with a clean sweep. KJT improved on her performance in the Worlds but not enough to deal with Belgian superstar Thiam returning from injury. Another Belgian came third and European athletes filled eight of the top ten places. Stretched out over two days, there’s always enough drama for a soap opera and KJT’s topsy Turvey career makes her the ideal soap star.
35)So many Welsh and Scottish quizzers. The Women’s World Cup gives Quiz HQ an opportunity to put a cat among the Celtic pigeons. The Six Nations 2024 saw Scotland come out on top with two victories, which included the Wales game. More Scottish superiority in the Autumn WXV tournament. Will Welsh quizzers feel they can turn this around in the next ten months?
36)England won the WXV First Division with tough games against Ireland and Canada showing how the gaps in playing standards are closing. In the 2021 World Cup, England won two matches by more than fifty points, against Fiji and South Africa. Perhaps in 2025,England won’t find such easy opponents.
37)England have only lost one game in their last sixty but, cautionary tale, that loss was against New Zealand in the 2021 World Cup. The tournament is in England this time and England will be hot favourites but Cassandra style prophets of doom might take a punt on the holders, New Zealand, Canada or perhaps among European rivals, Ireland or France.I advise leaving Wales and Scotland whose biggest prize may be victory in Q34.
38/39Happy days in Roman autumn sunshine in 2023 as Europe convincingly regained the Ryder Cup lost on American soil in a sombre Covid era atmosphere in 2021. The Europeans scorched into a five point lead on Day One and the margin remained five at the end of Sunday’s tied singles. Three of the European side were unbeaten throughout. Note the question wording RETAINED. Europe will keep the Ryder Cup even if they draw in America.
A note of caution before you write down YES and EUROPE.The 2025 Ryder Cup will be played on the outskirts of New York so expect an even more raucous partisan crowd than usual, though Rome was rowdy enough. Two of the unbeaten Europeans were signed up by LIV golf and may not be eligible to play. Just as in 2023,current world rankings see a Top Ten with six Americans, four Europeans but the American team will surely have greater strength in depth. Only once since 2004 has the away team won the Ryder Cup, though the optimists among you will point out that was a European team in the Miracle of Medinah(sic)2012.
40)In honour of quizzer Nigel Anderton who had been shouting the name of the English trained 2024 Arc winner, Bluestocking, from the rooftops for weeks, the Quiz returns to romantic Paris in the Autumn. Can the French hold on to their most important race, perhaps the most important horse race in Europe? Seven of the last ten Arcs have gone to overseas raiders, but usually as this year French trained horses are in the majority. Are you going with recent history or weight of numbers?
41)The Grand Final has been Rugby League’s way of deciding its champions since 1998.At the end of the league season, the top six go into a series of play-offs. The end result is that only four teams, Leeds, Wigan, St Helens and Bradford have won a Grand Final in those twenty seven years. Hull Kingston Rovers were the latest team to try to break into the cartel but had to give best to the holders Wigan who completed an astounding clean sweep of the four major titles including the World Cup Championship. This question is not as clear cut as it seems. Wigan lost five times in the League season. St Helens can’t again be as mediocre as during this season; new kids on the block Leigh Leopards and Salford’s Red Devils are snapping at Wigan heels as are Warrington.
42) The World Series of Baseball is decided by the best of seven games between the champions of the American League and the National League. Nineteen of the thirty major league baseball teams play their home games east of the Mississippi, reflecting the game’s origins in the rust bucket states. If you vote west, the two riverbank sides, St Louis and Minnesota, are on your side-by less than a mile. In 2024,the finalists came from opposite coasts, Los Angeles Dodgers from California and the New York Yankees. The National League’s Dodgers won 4-1 for the WEST, though historians of the great game will note that till 1957,the Dodgers were based in Brooklyn.
43)Max Verstappen clinched his fourth drivers’ championship in a row at Las Vegas 2024 and his victory was based around imperious early season form.Come summer and several other teams came into contention to challenge Red Bull.Mercedes had a one-two in Sin City;Ferrari’s three-four moved them close to challenging Red Bull for the constructors’championship.Lando Norris in his McClaren had given Max a run for his money with several wins.So,for the first time in several yeas,it seems worth asking WHO’S GOT THE BEST CAR?
44)The answer in 2024 was Liverpool. More quizzers than I expected banked the points for the traditional last question of the Quiz. Few would have expected the Scouse margin though it was not decided till the final weekend. Liverpool have settled nicely under their new manager. City are in a rare spell of poor form, missing Rodri for the season and with Pep’s future the subject of rumours. Arsenal too are in poor form too; Villa and Forest are surely already overachieving. Spurs are being Spurs again. Perhaps United have finally solved their managerial problems. Chelsea may show that if you spend billions, some of it will pay off.
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