Sunday night saw Punch hail its greatest pub quizzers in a nail-biting finale at the Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton where the ‘Usual Suspects’ from the Brickmakers Arms, Coventry were crowned national winners for the second year in a row.
There were 25 teams in the final, hosted by Mark ‘The Beast’ Labbett, having been whittled down from over 1,000. With high quality pub quizzing talent and knowledge on display, the tense final saw the ‘Usual Suspects’ reigning supreme over runners-up ‘Galacticos’ from the Station, Newcastle and third-place ‘Tadpoles’ of the White Hart Tap, St Albans. The winners walked away with a prize fund of £2,000, ‘Galacticos’ with £1,000 and ‘Tadpoles’ with £500. In addition to monetary prizes the final saw the Sneyd Arms, Keele win an 11g keg of Carling in the Licencee’s Challenge.
The winning and runners-up pubs will now host their own celebrity quiz night, arranged and conducted by Redtooth, specialists in pub entertainment. The quiz night aims to bring the local community together for an evening of fun and laughter, whilst also driving footfall to the pub.
Stephen Martin, category manager at Punch, commented: “We’re really pleased with how the Great British Pub Quiz has captured the imagination of our Publicans and their locals. We always enjoy offering initiatives that our Publicans can get involved in, that are not only fun but will also increase footfall and therefore profits for them, and our Great British Pub Quiz is a great example of this. We hope the Brickmakers Arms, Station and White Hart Tap enjoy their celebrity quiz night!“
1,030 pubs registered for the 2017 Carling Great British Pub Quiz, and each pub received eight weeks of free quizzes for teams to compete in. Once the in-pub round came to an end, each participating pub was able to nominate their winning team to attend a regional final. The winning team from each of these 20 contests not only qualified for the national final, but also won £50 on the night.