Of the 42 clues fielded this World Cup, unfortunately 5 had to be shown a straight red card before the shoot-out even began for fielding an ineligible number of letters in the answer (8(7), 22(7), 24(6), 33(11) and 35(5)). Clue 18 also fell foul of the rules by offering wordplay to GOAL only. This left 36 legitimate clues, which was quite remarkably the same number as the penalties actually taken during the 4 shoot-outs of this year's tournament. Of these, 26 were converted, 8 saved and just 2 missed. The organisers had hoped to see more GOALS than MISSES in our competition, but sadly this was not to be, with 13 GOALS, 7 SAVES and a massive 16 MISSES.
Several competitors went to the extra effort of giving their clues a football flavour, whether related to the World Cup in some way (1, 6, 13, 21, 26, [34, 37, 38 and 42), or not (3, 5, 7, 16, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36* and 41.
26 different 8-letter formations were chosen, most of them from the second-half, although the most popular was DISPENSE with 5 appearances (5(M), 16(M), 17(G), 19(M) and 34(M)). Other cluewords featuring substitutes were EXPENSES (27(M) and 28(M)), MISSPENT (25(M) and 26(G)), NEPENTHE (2(G) and 39*(M)), OPEN FIRE (9*(G) and 36(M)), PENTAGON (7(S) and 12(M)), REPENTED (11(S) and 41*(M)) and SUSPENSE (6(G) and 31*(G)).
As stated in the preamble to the competition, link words were once again cup-tied this month, as definition and wordplay are clearly not equivalent. Despite the specific warning a couple of clues did receive cautions in this regard (13 and 33). ‘& lit.’ clues were of course acceptable in that they refer in their entirety to both mutilated and unmutilated versions of the clue word, though surprisingly there was only one example this month (clue 31).
One in six of the legitimate clues reached the knock-out stages, and it was certainly a difficult task for the referee – fair play to the solver was obviously a big deciding factor.
Thanks to the organisers for another fine competition, delivered on time and within budget as usual – they think it's all over (for another 4 years) – it is now !! |
