Mark Murray

Mark Murray octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	902
Conundrums solved	6

Mark Murray in Series 70...

...and again in the Championship of Champions XIV.

Mark Murray holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy after winning Series 70.

Mark Murray was a contestant in Series 41, an octochamp in and the champion of Series 70 (making him the first series winner born in the Republic of Ireland), and a quarter-finalist in Championship of Champions XIV. As of his first appearance, he was from Botley, Oxfordshire, but born in Dublin. As of his Series 70 and Championship of Champions appearances, he was a collection specialist for an energy company, from Bristol. He is also an Apterite and briefly, a former chairperson of FOCAL.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

Murray first appeared in Series 41, losing to eventual quarter-finalist, Sanjay Mazumder. Fifteen years later, he returned for Series 70, becoming an octochamp and the 11th contestant to score eight consecutive centuries in their prelims. At the time of his run, his cumulative total (902) was the highest-scoring octochamp whose run had included a crucial conundrum. He had three altogether, in his matches against Bobby Johnson, Ciaran McCarthy and Peter Steggle. Because of this and McCarthy's century, many consider Murray to have had the hardest ever octochamp run on the show. This record was beaten by Ahmed Mohamed's 927-point octochamp run in Series 84.

Finals

Despite the array of difficult opponents, Murray was the clear number one seed for the finals and saw off the challenges of Andy Gardner in the quarter-finals, Neil Green in the semi-finals, and Andy Naylor in the grand final to win the series.

Championship of Champions XIV

Murray returned in 2016 for Championship of Champions XIV, facing off against Series 71 runner-up, Antoinette Ryan, in a game self-styled as "Battle of the Leprechauns", in which Murray emerged victorious 125 – 88. In the quarter-final, he came up against another Series 71 contestant in series champion, "Cool Dan McColm". In the battle of the two series winners of 2014, "Cool Dan" won a tense match 112 – 99.

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

In January 2017, Murray also made a spoof appearance in Episode Cats75, paired with Sean Lock and Stephen Mangan. He was introduced as Sean's mascot nephew "Donny". Unbeknownst to the rest of the panel, he was brought in to play the game for Sean. Murray helped Sean achieve the maximum score in the first two rounds, whispering the solutions to him and declaring the answers as his own. The panel soon figured this out, so he went backstage. Murray returned for the conundrum, solving DENTPOOPS, where his true identity was revealed shortly before that.

Outside of Countdown

Away from Countdown, Murray has partaken in Scrabble tournaments. He has also appeared on a few other quiz shows with varying success, including The Weakest Link, 100% and BrainTeaser.

After his Countdown appearances, he participated in ZoomDown Series 2.

Co-events

In 2005, Murray entered the first ever Co-event, CoBris 2005, and subsequently CoBris 2006 and CoBris 2007. In 2015, he revived Countdown in Bristol as a co-host, along with veteran Jeff Clayton to create CoBris 2015. This proved to be popular enough to encourage him to repeat with CoBris 2016, 2017 and 2018. He reached his first grand final at CO:LON:2 in 2018, becoming runner-up to Oliver Garner.

Preceded by Callum Todd

Series winner Series 70

Followed by Dan McColm

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
2630	27/10/1999	P	Sanjay Mazumder	65 – 25	Mark Murray	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Marc Freden	Mark Nyman	73
5902	10/04/2014	P	Bobby Johnson	96 – 115	Mark Murray	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Michael Whitehall	Susie Dent	145
5903	11/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	108 – 42	Chris Newbury	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Michael Whitehall	Susie Dent	120
5904	14/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	120 – 104	Ciaran McCarthy	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Michael Whitehall	Susie Dent	137
5905	15/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	100 – 26	Jim Sales	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Louise Minchin	Susie Dent	132
5906	16/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	115 – 48	David Jameson	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Louise Minchin	Susie Dent	135
5907	17/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	112 – 95	Peter Steggle	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Louise Minchin	Susie Dent	123
5908	18/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	122 – 86	Mike Wilson	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Louise Minchin	Susie Dent	133
5909	21/04/2014	P	Mark Murray	110 – 69	Simon Pinder	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Louise Minchin	Susie Dent	133
5940	13/06/2014	QF	Mark Murray	95 – 63	Andy Gardner	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Foster	Susie Dent	120
5944	25/06/2014	SF	Mark Murray	89 – 64	Neil Green	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Foster	Susie Dent	134
5946	27/06/2014	GF	Mark Murray	105 – 70	Andy Naylor	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jon Culshaw	Susie Dent	137
6285	13/01/2016	CP	Antoinette Ryan	88 – 125	Mark Murray	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	John Inverdale	Susie Dent	140
6289	19/01/2016	CQF	Dan McColm	112 – 99	Mark Murray	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Naga Munchetty	Susie Dent	145
Cats75	13/01/2017	S	Stephen Mangan, Mark Murray & Sean Lock	45 – 22*	Noel Fielding, Fay Ripley & Rachel Riley	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					The Brett Domino Trio	Susie Dent	80

* includes 22 points from a bonus game

External Links

• Article on Murray and his Series 70 victory, The Irish Times