Cambridge
The University of Cambridge in England has a quiz bowl team known as the Cambridge Quiz Society.
History
UK University quizzing sprang up, or at least gently emerged from its cave, in the mid-1990s when the return of BBC quiz show University Challenge in 1994 began to reanimate those competitive instincts among the new generation of trivia-hungry students. In 1998 Chris Harrison, one of the Imperial team who had won the 1996 TV series, organised the first British Student Quiz Championships, and several Cambridge colleges sent teams. A year later Oxford plucked up the courage to challenge Cambridge to the first Varsity quiz match, and though the result was eventually decided by a scoring error it at least started an august annual tradition of hard-fought rivalry. It was clearly time to back up the brave teams with a proper university society and so in June 1999 Sean Blanchflower and Robin Bhattacharyya of Trinity's 1995 winning University Challenge team founded the Cambridge University Quiz Society.
Although Oxford has largely had a stranglehold over the British Quizbowl scene, Cambridge has emerged as a strong challenger over the past few years. In 2014, University Challenge winner Alex Guttenplan inspired Cambridge to its first ever victory in the Varsity match, a feat which was repeated in 2016 with a strong performance from Samuel Cook.
Performances
A strong core of novice players contributed to success at the 2016 VCU Novice tournament in London.
Cambridge teams additionally performed very well at MUT with all 4 Cambridge teams handily defeating a strong Oxford A and an upset with Cambridge B defeating Cambridge A.
At 2016 ACF Fall's UK site, Cambridge A cleared the field taking a win against both Oxford A and Oxford B by healthy margins.
Hosted Tournaments
- Cambridge Open 2015
- Penn Bowl 2016
- MUT 2016
- Cambridge Open 2017