| Comments on the competition |
|---|
| 1. |
|---|
20 – a faultless clue, I feel – anecdotal, smart word-play and efficient – 5 points. One to frame and stick on the wall.
49 – Charming – 3 points.
33 – Neat, like the word-play – 2 points.
Ten others I gave a half-point for being fairly solid with some interesting ideas and fluency, but lacking perhaps the same degree of flare or crispness demonstrated by the above: 12 15 16 17 23 31 34 36 39 50.
A personal thing – I found others a bit too busy or contrived; and a number inconsistent with the instructions, being not football-y enough in the surface reading. |
| 2. |
|---|
Some lovely ideas but also lots of clues made unsound by the use of linking words which implied that, for example, BUL is the same as BUL-BUL, which it isn’t. This is something repeatedly mentioned by Azed over the years (Slips 1200, 1441, 1459, 1596, 1707, 1914 ).
Some of the linking words used were ‘as’ (4), ‘in’ (8 and 13), ‘for’ (12 and 26), 'is’ (39 and 41) and ‘prove to be’ (44).
One can normally work round the problem (eg High kicking action? Crouch has the power) but avoiding them does make life harder.
My favourite clue was 48 (where the ‘as’ is part of the definition), then 18, 17, 3 and 1. |
| 3. |
|---|
It is amazing that so many people can't obey simple instructions. After wondering whether or not it really mattered, I eventually discarded all clues that weren't in the correct format (give or take a colon or a semi-colon). My votes eventually (a good lot of clues I felt) were
1st (3.5 points): 20
2nd (2.5 points): 21
3rd (2 points): 37
4th (1.5 points]: 23
5th (1 point): 36
6th= (0.5 points each): 3, 7, 10, 12, 16, 22, 39, 45, 49 |
| 4. |
|---|
Part of the challenge was that the clue should have a footballing surface. In my view, it was not enough simply to introduce the name of a character associated with football, but in a non-footballing context (eg, 10 or even 41), let alone simply to mention a World Cup venue in this way (eg, 6, 8). Beyond that, I gave more credit to surfaces dealing with actual events (especially events associated with the World Cup) than to those involving (as far as I can discover – my apologies if this is down to my ignorance of the game) purely imaginary incidents (1, 3, 12, 33 and 50) or vague generalizations (2, 23, 25, 40, 42). Unfortunately, quite a few of the clues that met these criteria were seriously flawed (eg, 5 – indirect anagram – 20 – I don’t think “Rob Green’s last” can mean “Green after last has been taken away” – 26 – “who” plays no valid part – 31 – “by” ditto – 35 – “no longer” ditto – 46 – “heads” does NOT mean “heads of” – 34 and 44 – “set back” and “setback” are NOT the same thing). 24, 32 and 49 also sailed fairly close to the wind wrt soundness (much as I liked other aspects of 24 and 49 especially). In the economical 9, a “can” and a “potty” may have the same purpose, but they are not, unfortunately, the same thing. In 16 and 19, the definitions made dubious sense in the context of the surface, while 17, though it had an excellent definition, was rendered very stilted by the need to include “team”.
My votes as follows:
2 points each: 15, 21, 37
1.5 points each: 22, 24, 29, 43
1 point each: 7 32 49 |
