Quiz fun for the Six Nations
A new quiz book will bring extra enjoyment to watching the Six Nations Championship this year, writes Jenny White...
ABOUT 15 years ago, Matthew Jones had a brainwave that led him to become a bestselling writer of quiz books. He was in Waterstones in Cardiff looking for gifts for his sports-mad dad when he realised something was missing.
“My dad has had most of the Welsh sports autobiographies published in the last 25 years or so bought for him,” he says. “I was looking for something a bit different and I thought a Welsh rugby quiz book would perfectly fit the bill as a stocking-filler.
“To my amazement there wasn’t one and it was one of those classic gap-in-the-market-type of situations.”
He rose to the challenge and, a year later, his first book, The Welsh Rugby Quiz Book, was published.
“There must have been other shoppers in the same boat as me as it became a bestseller,” he says.
It sold so many copies that an updated version was published a couple of years ago.
“We all know we like our rugby in Wales and this was an easy gift for those people who are difficult to buy for,” he says. “After that I continued writing more, mostly about rugby, but in 2018 I did write The Wales Quiz Book which was about everything Welsh.
“I learnt a lot pulling the book together. I didn’t, for example, know that Mount Everest was named after a Welshman or that the ball-bearing came from my home town of Carmarthen.”
Jones has lived in Cardiff for close to 25 years, working within the pharmacy sector, the NHS and social care, and loves writing quiz books in his spare time.
“I’m a massive fan of sport and in particular all things Welsh,” he says. “We’ve been so lucky over the last decade or so with our national football team – under the guidance of exceptional leaders such as Gary Speed and Chris Coleman – giving us some fantastic memories, in particular that amazing summer of 2016. I’ll never forget the atmosphere in that first game in Bordeaux. The city was a sea of red and it just felt like a special privilege being there.
“In rugby, Warren Gatland covered up the cracks to deliver some great Six Nations results, while the month of July has been about the likes of Luke Rowe and Geraint Thomas bossing the largest annual sports event in the world. It’s been a great time to be a Welsh sports fan and long may that continue.”
Jones’ passion for rugby started when, as a young boy in the late 1980s, he was taken to his first rugby match.
“It was Llanelli v Bridgend at Stradey Park. The Scarlets team contained some absolute legends – players like Ieuan Evans and Phil Davies, who’d soon become my childhood heroes. From that point onwards I was hooked,” he says. “When you combine passion for rugby with a geeky desire for facts and figures, then you’ve got the right mix necessary for having a go at putting a quiz book together on the subject.”
In writing his quiz books – including his timely new release, The Six Nations Rugby Quiz Book, he works to create broad appeal for all levels of knowledge.
“It’s suitable for every rugby fan, regardless of whether they’re a Six Nations novice or spend every Saturday on the terraces of their local village side before going to the clubhouse for a pint and a chat about all things oval. There are some very hard questions for the real experts, but this is a book for all.
“There’s nothing worse than going to your local pub for a quiz night and finding yourself unable to answer any questions. If a quiz is too hard, it’s not a good quiz and it’s probably down to the quizmaster being on a bit of an ego trip – some people really like holding a mic! If the questions are too easy, then the challenge just isn’t there. For a quiz to work, you need a mixture of questions.”
The Six Nations Rugby Quiz Book is split into 50 rounds of 10 questions. In each there’s a small number of very easy questions, some reasonably challenging ones and then some stretching ones for the die-hard fans. Most questions have multiple-choice options for answers.
To create The Six Nations Rugby Quiz Book – his eighth quiz book – Jones spent many hours in the library cross-checking facts and figures.
“It probably isn’t for everyone. I’m sure most people have better things to do! I do like a good fact and The Six Nations Rugby Quiz Book is full of little gems.
“I enjoy questions about the first time things have happened, such as a first red card or maybe a first win on foreign soil. I also enjoy finding those weird facts. There’s one in the book about an Irish player going to the Olympic Games. It probably sounds a bit sports-obsessed, but I enjoy a bit of crossover between sports – it’s quite a feat for those who can achieve it.”
Jones’ first book came out in 2008 – the year Wales won their first Grand Slam under head coach Warren Gatland, beating England 26-19 at Twickenham in their first game and defeating France 29-12 to take the title in Cardiff on the last weekend of the championship.
Shane Williams finished the tournament as top try-scorer with six, while Stephen Jones and James Hook both scored 44 tournament points.
“The positivity from the tournament probably helped with book sales,” he says. “Considering I didn’t even know if anyone would want to publish the book when I first put The Welsh Rugby Quiz Book together, it was a complete shock when it became a bestseller.
“We do love our rugby in Wales so it maybe shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but still it was a fantastic response. The updated version still sells thousands every year and the fact that the questions are written in a way that they don’t become dated hopefully means it will continue to sell well in the future.”
His latest release looks set to have similarly broad appeal – Matthew’s hope is that it will bring extra fun and interest to watching the championship.
“It’s always good to have feedback and always great to hear from people who’ve enjoyed my books. I always enjoy sharing a fact and I suppose my quiz books are all about recording facts and sharing with others in a concise way.
“The book is just a bit of fun, something to do at half-time when sat on the sofa watching a match or maybe sat round a table with friends in the local rugby club on a quiet Thursday night.”