Template:FA April 1

Harry Peters was an octochamp in Series 6 who, despite achieving record breaking scores, was controversially removed from Countdown history. Peters made his début in 1985 and amassed 562 points in his eight heat games, easily beating all records from Countdown's original 9 round era. However, all episodes of Countdown featuring Peters as a contestant were scrapped and never broadcast owing to his poor temperament in the studio. In one game, Peters refused to shake hands with opponent Trevor Acorns after being narrowly beaten to the conundrum IFLOPORAL, despite having already won by a comfortable margin. During another game, Peters interrupted an anecdote from Dictionary Corner guest Richard Stilgoe to mock his habit of anagramming contestants' names – holding up a piece of card emblazoned with "wafting tuck".

Following a foul-mouthed outburst in his eighth and final game, Countdown's producers decided that Peters was unsuitable for broadcast. His entire eight-game run was declared null and void, with the contestants who had faced him invited back to Leeds to play each other in games to replace the episodes where they had previously been beaten. Details of Peters' controversial run leaked online in the early 2000s, and his contribution to Countdown was only acknowledged on-screen 22 years after recording. When a user of the gevincountdown Yahoo! Group revealed that Peters had worn a neckerchief and rainbow braces in all of his eight games, Series 57 quarter-finallist and record-breaking hugger Mikey Lear donned an identical ensemble for his first heat game. This tribute to Peters' recklessness prompted Dictionary Corner guest Barry Norman to remark that Lear would be "the death of this show". In 2013, a short clip recovered from a bootleg tape of Peters' final heat was uploaded to the video sharing website YouTube. However, the whereabouts of Peters himself remain unknown. (more...)