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Bradley Horrocks

From Countdown
Bradley Horrocks
Octochamp Statistics
Final positionRunner-up
Seeding2
Points total864
Conundrums solved5
Bradley Horrocks in Series 77.
Bradley Horrocks solving the conundrum in Episode 6526.

Bradley Horrocks was an octochamp in and the runner-up of Series 77, and the runner-up of Championship of Champions XV. He was a maths student from Bolton. He is also an Apterite who has held the No. 1 position in the Pro Ranks. [1]

Prior to his début as a contestant, Horrocks had appeared on Countdown during the previous series as the audience member who unscrambled the conundrum COOLCIDER on 23 February 2017.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

Bra, as he is also known on Apterous, made his début on 22 November 2017 in the champion's chair, where he comfortably outran Liam Dwek with a century. Another seven wins followed, including six centuries and a score in the 80s. He amassed 864 points during his run, finishing his unbeaten streak during the penultimate week of preliminaries in Series 77 to qualify as the No. 2 seed for the finals as well as the eighth and final octochamp of the series.

Finals

Eleven days later, Horrocks returned for the finals stage, where he first prevailed over No. 7-ranked James Kennedy in a very close quarter-final, sealing victory on a crucial conundrum. Barely a week after that, he returned for the semi-finals where he faced the "strong 6 small" man John Cowen. In spite of this, he managed to defeat him through several letters rounds by spotting words such as OVERFIT, RETINOID and SIDEWAY. Finally, the day after his semi-final, he reached the grand final of Series 77, where he took on No. 1 seed Tom Chafer-Cook. In the first round, he beat Chafer-Cook with the five-letter GREED after the latter had a word disallowed, and he kept up tenaciously with the top seed in all numbers and most letters rounds thereafter to force a crucial conundrum with the score standing 100 – 91 in Chafer-Cook's favour. However, neither contestant was able to spot that RILEYISMS unscrambled to MISSILERY within the allotted time, meaning that Horrocks finally fell at the final hurdle but still finished as runner-up of a very strong series.

Championship of Champions XV

Horrocks returned to Countdown over a year later in January 2019 to participate in the Championship of Champions XV. In the seventh match of the preliminary round, he took on fellow series runner-up Andrew Macleod. A high-scoring contest saw Horrocks take the game 128 – 104 to set up a quarter-final rematch with John Cowen. In the quarter-final match, they played a close run game, but Horrocks ran 3 points ahead and finished with 99 points to Cowen's 96 after both players gave incorrect answers to the crucial conundrum MIHIBALLS. In the semi-finals, he played a rematch of his grand final in Series 77 against Tom Chafer-Cook. After falling 7 points behind in round 1, he turned it around with victory in the third numbers round and won the final letters round with ATHEROMA. Both solved the final numbers round, giving victory to Horrocks despite Chafer-Cook solving the conundrum (to lose by 1 point!). He played Zarte Siempre in the grand final, but his opponent lead all the way, spotting HEDARIM in round 1 and extending his lead with a 3 large selection and DIADEM in round 13 to build an unassailable lead. Horrocks did get one last consolation, solving a 6 small with use of the 13 times table.

Catsdown

On 12 August 2022, Horrocks appeared on Series 23 of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, helping out Jamali Maddix and Joe Wilkinson. He also became the first non-celebrity contestant since Mark Murray in more than 5.5 years to appear on that version of the show.

Co-events

Horrocks competed in the 2018 and 2019 FOCAL finals, finishing in 6th place in 2018 then losing on a tiebreak conundrum against Callum Todd in the 2019 final. He has made eight co-event finals, winning the 2020 virtual edition of CO-MSO before finally winning his first face-to-face tournament, Co-Blackpool 2021.

Preceded by
Moose Rosser
Series runner-up
Series 77
Followed by
Philip Aston


Preceded by
Dan McColm
Champion of Champions runner-up
Championship of Champions XV
Followed by
James Haughton

Episodes

# Date Type Contestant 1 Score Contestant 2 Presenters Guest Lex Max
6715 22/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 109 – 40 Liam Dwek Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gyles Brandreth Susie Dent 124
6716 23/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 113 – 57 Peter Buckley Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 122
6717 27/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 116 – 49 Alenka Butkovicova Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 124
6718 28/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 82 – 70 Laurie Dyer Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 124
6719 29/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 102 – 68 Steve Harris Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 133
6720 30/11/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 122 – 42 Leah Holroyd Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 164
6721 1/12/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 111 – 37 Jason Hill Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Richard Madeley Susie Dent 144
6722 4/12/2017 P Bradley Horrocks 109 – 40 Luke O'Reilly Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Richard Madeley Susie Dent 147
6731 15/12/2017 QF Bradley Horrocks 86 – 80 James Kennedy Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Paul Zenon Susie Dent 121
6735 21/12/2017 SF Bradley Horrocks 95 – 83 John Cowen Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rufus Hound Susie Dent 134
6736 22/12/2017 GF Tom Chafer-Cook 100 – 91 Bradley Horrocks Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rufus Hound Susie Dent 122
6986 10/01/2019 CP Bradley Horrocks 128 – 104 Andrew Macleod Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 133
6989 15/01/2019 CQF John Cowen 96 – 99 Bradley Horrocks Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Linda Papadopoulos Susie Dent 136
6993 21/01/2019 CSF Bradley Horrocks 111 – 110 Tom Chafer-Cook Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Jon Culshaw Susie Dent 128
6994 22/01/2019 CGF Zarte Siempre 116 – 83 Bradley Horrocks Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Jon Culshaw Susie Dent 123
Cats145 12/08/2022 S Jamali Maddix, Bradley
Horrocks & Joe Wilkinson
73* – 56* Jon Richardson
& Jo Brand
Jimmy Carr Rachel Riley Rachel Parris Susie Dent 75
* Includes 5 points from a bonus game.


Championship of Champions Runners-Up

I : Joyce Cansfield | II : Peter Evans | III : David Trace | IV : Tony Vick | V : Gino Corr | VI : Chris Waddington | VII : Damian Eadie | VIII : Kenneth Michie | IX : Pete Cashmore | X : Kate Ogilvie | XI : Chris Wills | XII : Mark Tournoff | XIII : Charlie Reams | XIV : Dan McColm | XV : Bradley Horrocks | XVI : James Haughton

See Also