The latest season of University Challenge aired on the 14th of July, featuring Sheffield playing against Warwick. The Sheffield team consisted of Izzy Dobbie, Rhys Lewis, Abdelrahman Essisi and team captain Jacob Price, alongside team reserve CT. The team scored an impressive 170 points in total in this episode, giving them a good chance to be invited back for the repechage round later in the season.
Forge Press spoke to members of the team to find out about their experience training and during the show itself as well as the team relationship and the energy on the university challenge set on the day of filming.
When discussing the training process, team captain Jacob found their once and twice weekly training sessions to be “quite helpful to adjust to the format of the show and to expand our knowledge bases before filming.” Teammate Izzy also “got to know my teammates and became very good friends with them”. The team also found their regular practices within the university’s Quiz Society to be extremely helpful before the training for the show even started.
The relationship within the team became stronger as training progresses, with team member Rhys Lewis enjoying the fact that “we got to know each other both as people and as quizzers”. He is also specifically fond of a moment in training with “Abdel picking me up on a chair lifter and wheeling me around the room”.
Although the show itself carried a lot of pressure, the team handled it brilliantly and also still found moments of fun in the chaos. Izzy particularly enjoyed when “Amol Rajan started randomly singing at several points in filming which was really funny, and at one point he started to quiz me on my favourite restaurants in my area since he’s also from North London.”
When asked about the content of the quiz itself, Captain Jacob replied that “There was nothing I was particularly surprised about in our match, but I was happy to get a question on astronomy, as that’s what I study for my degree. I was slightly frustrated not to get the question on Portal, as I’ve played both games in the franchise!”
The team collectively reported the slightly overwhelming and “terrifying” nature of being on a live show, with Rhys commenting that “Seeing my name and names of my friends on a show I’ve been following closely for years felt weird (a good weird) and so exciting!”
Despite the competitive nature of the show, Rhys reported that the team got on very well with the opposing team from Warwick and enjoyed a lunch together after filming.
During the episode’s broadcast on the 14th of July, Sheffield QuizSoc held a watch party, where 13 members, including 3 of the team members, celebrated the show with snacks, drinks and badges. Publicity officer Charlie told Forge Press that “Knowing that our friends were representing not only our society, but the university as a whole, was an immensely proud moment for our society. We have got to know this team of wonderful people very well, some over the last year, and some longer than that. We couldn’t have asked for a lovelier group of people to represent us.”
All of the team members highly enjoyed their experience on university challenge and would all recommend any student interested to look into this opportunity. To end, Izzy told us “I would recommend it to everyone: it’s such a rewarding experience, so fun and I’ve made friends for life through it” with Jacob adding that “It has been one of the highlights of my time at University.”
Image Credit: BBC’s University Challenge
