Staffordshire question leaves Only Connect contestants stumped
A Staffordshire clue proved too tricky for one team on BBC Two quiz show Only Connect, with their opponents eventually giving an answer that was technically correct, but for completely the wrong reason.
The county appeared in one of the famously difficult connection rounds, where contestants are given a series of apparently unrelated clues and must work out both what comes next and the link between them.
For the team Stitchers, the sequence quickly became a head-scratcher.
The first clue was “Three in Cambridgeshire”, worth five points. The next was “Two in Staffordshire”, which reduced the potential score to three points.
A third clue then appeared for two points: “One in Hertfordshire.”
At that stage, the Stitchers had to identify what the fourth clue should be and, crucially, explain the pattern connecting all four answers.
The team considered several possibilities, including the number of universities and military bases in each county.
Eventually, they took a guess and offered “Zero in Buckinghamshire.”
The question then passed to their opponents, the Gunners.
They went with “Zero in Rutland”, which turned out to be a valid answer. They could also have chosen “Zero in Dorset.”
But there was a catch.
Although the Gunners had found a correct county for the sequence, they had misunderstood what the sequence actually represented. They believed the clues referred to the number of cathedrals in each county.
The real connection was English counties by number of cities.
That meant Staffordshire’s clue, “Two in Staffordshire,” referred to the two cities within the county: Stoke-on-Trent and Lichfield.
So the Gunners managed to land on the right answer despite having the wrong reasoning behind it.
The difficult question ultimately proved costly for the Stitchers. They finished the contest with 13 points, while the Gunners went on to win with 25 points.
For anyone watching at home, however, the Staffordshire clue offered the perfect Only Connect challenge: a handful of seemingly simple numbers, a county or two, and a connection that only becomes obvious once you have worked out exactly what the numbers are counting.