Graeme Cole was champion of Series 65. On his Countdown début against Liam Herringshaw, he immediately gained an eight point lead and spotted the nine-letter word RECOMBINE in the third letters round. Cole also scored 30 out of 30 on the numbers rounds, and won with 112 points. He outplayed Steven Hatton in his second game and found three further perfect numbers solutions to win 105 – 49. In Cole's third game, his opponent Aidan Turnbull kept apace in the early stages and this was the first of three consecutive games in which he fell short of a century. In the first seven rounds of Cole's sixth game, he amassed 62 points without reply including the niner NURSEMAID. He again scored 30 points on the numbers rounds and unravelled the conundrum IVYLEAVES in 2½ seconds. His final score of 125 was four points short of the maximum possible score in the game, and one point short of the highest score of the series. Cole concluded his octochamp run with scores of 91 – 41 and 95 – 59, and with an eight game total of 813 points he qualified for the series finals as #2 seed.

In his quarter-final match against Nikki Roberts, Cole spotted the niner DRAGLINES and again scored 30 out of 30 on the numbers. With a further 10 points for the apt conundrum EIGHTWINS, he won comfortably by 113 points to 61. In his semi-final against Paul Keane, Cole once again went behind early in the match but recovered with the word CAPRINE and took the lead with EXHAUST in round 8. Scoring 10 points in the second numbers round and spotting the eight letter word OCCULTED late in the game helped Cole to a 96 – 71 victory. In the series final. he faced #4 seed Carl Williams. Both players scored 43 points across the first five rounds, before Williams went ahead with ERECTION in the sixth. Five rounds later, Cole went three points into the lead, and he extended the gap to 10 points in round 14. Williams unscrambled the crucial conundrum TIMEUPLAD to force the game to a tie-breaker second conundrum. Cole unravelled VAANGELIS and became the 65th Countdown series champion, and the last to be crowned during Jeff Stelling's spell as presenter.

Cole returned to the Countdown studios for a special episode against Edward McCullagh in July 2012, to decide the overall champion of 2011. Six months later, Cole took part in the 30th Birthday Championship. After receiving a bye to the first round proper, he lost his only match against the Series 66 champion Jack Worsley by a score of 104 – 98, despite achieving the maximum possible score across the first 13 rounds. Today, Cole is an active contributor to the online Countdown community, using his skills as a software developer to provide data analysis on the c4countdown forum. (more...)

More Featured Articles...

• ...that Jamie Ilett-Jones's score of 129 points on 8 September 2014 is the highest winning score posted by a challenger who went on to lose in their second game?
• ...that 13 December 2011 marked the first and, to date, only game of Countdown without a single L appearing in the letters rounds – possibly because four tiles were 'borrowed' for the conundrum MORSTELLA and its solution STEAMROLL?
• ...that Gino Corr (pictured) became the first ever contestant to score the maximum 10 points on a 4-large numbers round, in round 3 of the Series 19 grand final?
• ...that Tom Carey solved all eight conundrums during his octochamp run in a total time of 17.75 seconds, breaking Harvey Freeman's record of 26 seconds that stood for 29 years?

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• 2020: Iain Campbell beat Tim Scott with final score 86 – 67.
• 2017: Karl Bates beat Amraj Dhami in a game that ended 73 – 54.
• 2016: Bob Mortimer and Sean Lock beat Jon Richardson and Holly Walsh by 33 – 23.
• 2016: Paul Craib beat Andy Moore with scores of 89 – 40.
• 2015: Jordan Barker beat Brian Craig, scoring 82 – 54.
• 2014: Sean Connors beat Bill Donaldson, by a score of 82 – 68.
• 2011: Michelle Nevitt beat James Sturman with a score of 86 – 83.
• 2010: Raheel Mirza beat Colin Davis in a 85 – 41 game.
• 2009: Kirk Bevins beat Fiona Shaw with final score 97 – 67.
• 2008: Barry Smith beat Vic Goodall in a game that ended 75 – 63.
• 2006: Tony Foran beat Kate May with scores of 72 – 53.
• 2005: Chris Hunt beat Daniel Monaghan, scoring 113 – 37.
• 2004: Stewart Holden beat Martin Rigby with a score of 79 – 73.
• 2003: Peter Jeffery beat Gordon Munn in a 84 – 82 game.
• 2000: Russell Gaines beat Nett Steinson with final score 59 – 29.
• 1999: Christopher Russon beat Dave Price, by a score of 43 – 42.
• 1998: Keith Burton beat Eric Castle in a game that ended 61 – 26.
• 1997: Mary Jones beat Andrew Newens with scores of 68 – 28.
• 1995: Chris Rogers beat Barry Hughes with a score of 60 – 34.
• 1994: Richard Campbell beat Rita Gulliver, scoring 55 – 44.
• 1993: Attiya Rashid beat Alan Fraser with final score 39 – 36.
• 1992: Fergus Sharp beat Fiona Davies, by a score of 54 – 50.
• 1989: Lawrence Pearse beat David Gledhill in a game that ended 52 – 12.
• 1987: Ted Kimmons beat Roger Squires with scores of 42 – 41.
• 1986: Roy Jackson beat Frankie Mairey in a 48 – 46 game.

• A brief overview of Countdown and some of its records and terminology.
• The team: Nick Hewer, Rachel Riley, Susie Dent, and Colin Murray.
• The show's institutions: the conundrum, the pencam, and the Teatime Teaser.
• Luke Johnson-Davies, reigning series champion, and his series grand final against Sam Cappleman-Lynes.
• The most recent Championship of Champions Final between Zarte Siempre and Bradley Horrocks, which was won by Siempre.
• The 30th Birthday Championship final between Conor Travers and Jack Hurst.
• Carol Vorderman, Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam, Des O'Connor and Jeff Stelling, the show's former presenters.
• The highest ever score, Elliott Mellor's 152.
• Series 83, the current series of Countdown.

• Learn about this wiki and how to use it.
• Episode style guide - if you want to help us edit the episode pages, this style guide gives comprehensive help.
• List of completed projects - see the progress we've made!
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• Apterous, an online game from the same people that run this site.
• The Countdown Page, Mike Brown's encyclopaedic record of Countdown scores and miscellany.
• The Countdown Database, detailed statistics and round-by-round details of over 5,700 episodes.
• FOCAL, regular in-person events that anyone can enter.
• C4Countdown, Countdown's main online forum, populated by many past octochamps.
• Quantum Tombola, a numbers game solver designed by Graeme Cole.
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• Greem, a website listing nearly all co-event scores.