Capital quiz team score hat-trick with television victory

IT’S a tough one to crack – but Edinburgh’s brightest quiz team have done it.

The team, called Tramlines, appeared on BBC2 last night beating brainboxes the Eggheads and scooping their third TV quiz victory in the process.

The five-strong team already have victories at Postcode Challenge and Quiz Trippers, and team captain Brian Pendreigh said today he thought the Eggheads win could make them the first team to take the top spot in three separate TV quiz shows.

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Mr Pendreigh, 54, from Trinity, first appeared on screen in 1986, when he reached the finals of Superscot. He scored an impressive 20 points in the general knowledge round on Mastermind, and then decided to pull together a TV team from pub quiz friends.

After their first two victories, they decided to challenge the Eggheads.

Although the team’s membership has changed slightly for each quiz, Mr Pendreigh, Max Thomson and Mark Gaffney have been in all the winning teams. Joining them for Eggheads were Richard Miller and David Gow.

Mr Pendreigh said: “I’m pretty sure no team has ever won three quizzes on telly before.

“Eggheads are better than us. If we were playing these guys over 150 questions they would beat us 100 times out of 100 but because of the format it comes down to just a few questions, if you can hang on in there you’ve got a chance.”

The team were victorious after braving two tie-break questions in the final round.

Mr Pendreigh said: “Our first was which film star’s real name was Bernard Schwartz. I wasn’t sure, but it was Tony Curtis. The Eggheads then had a question on world leaders and they got [it] wrong.”

With tension mounting, Tramlines were asked which English writer had written a pamphlet called The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.

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Mr Pendreigh said: “We were swithering between John Betjeman and John Milton. But we went for Milton.

“I was expecting them to say ‘No that’s wrong’ and I remember Jeremy Vine saying ‘It is Milton, you’ve won’ and that was a very proud moment.”

Mr Miller added: “You know that the people you’re up against are very impressive. We went there with the intention of having fun and expected to lose, so I was pretty surprised.”

Their win wasn’t as lucrative as it might have been. Every time the Eggheads win, the jackpot increases by £1000, and has reached £75,000 in the past but Tramlines took home £5000.

It has not dimmed their enthusiasm, however. Since Eggheads was filmed, the team have won £2000 at the Belhaven East of Scotland quiz, and Mr Pendreigh has his sights set on BBC4’s Only Connect.

How to beat the brains

In which year did the Russian Revolution take place?

a) 1907; b) 1917; c) 1927

Tom Fletcher and Harry Judd became famous as members of which band?

a) McFly; b) JLS; c) Westlife

The word “hepatic” refers to which part of the body?

a) liver; b) heart; c) lungs

A “byte” is a unit used for measuring what?

a) water evaporation; b) electronic communication data; c) crystillisation

Answers: b, a, a, b

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