Get ready for a tale that will make your jaw drop! In a small British pub, an innocent-looking pub quiz took a dramatic turn, leading to what the landlord humorously dubbed "the crime of the century."
Every week, The Barking Dog pub transforms into a battleground of trivia, attracting a dedicated crowd of 70 to 80 people all vying for the coveted £30 bar tab prize. But about a year and a half ago, something fishy started happening. A new team, a group of middle-aged women, arrived and began dominating the quiz, leaving their competitors in the dust. Quiz master Bobby Bruen described them as "simply brilliant" at first, but their flawless performance raised suspicions.
"We started getting complaints about them cheating, but we never saw anything," Bruen revealed. The doubts intensified during the music round, where contestants had to identify song titles and artists based on short intros, and then uncover the secret connection between them. It was a challenging task, but this team aced it every time, even with obscure questions and tricky connections.
Bruen devised a plan to throw them off with curveball questions, thinking no one, especially not this team, could get them right. But they did. "From '80s hip hop to '50s rock to 2010s pop music, they got everything... even with the producer's titles which aren't even mentioned on Spotify - I had no clue of the connection. That's when I knew they were cheating," he said.
To address the issue, the pub banned phones during the quiz, but the winning team continued their streak. The staff decided to take matters into their own hands and investigate. One staff member spied on the team, convinced they were cheating, but couldn't figure out how. Another staff member caught them red-handed - whispering into their smartwatches and using an app to guess the songs. When confronted, the team remained silent and turned away.
The team was banned from the quiz, but their identities remain a secret, "for our sake and their sake," Bruen said. However, the scandal spread quickly after the pub's landlord, Mark Rackham, shared the story on Facebook, sparking a massive "whodunnit" mystery. "Everyone's desperate to know who's done it," Rackham told the BBC, adding that it was "the crime of the century."
Despite the drama, Bruen believes there's no need to change the rules. "Because of the media frenzy, no one would dare to cheat in this pub again," he said.
And this is the part most people miss... the real crime here might not be the cheating, but the fact that these women were so good at the quiz that it drove others away. It's a fascinating insight into the competitive world of pub quizzes and the lengths some will go to for victory. What do you think? Is this truly the "crime of the century" or just a fun story? Let us know in the comments!
