Terence Newnham

Terence Newnham octochamp statistics
Final position	Semi-Finalist
Seeding	6
Points total	730
Conundrums solved	6

Terence Newnham, 17 years after his first appearance, in Series 90.

Terence 'Terry' Newnham was a contestant in Series 57, and an octochamp and semi-finalist in Series 90. At the time of his first appearances, he was a logistics coordinator. But by the time of his second set of games, he was working at UCLan in Preston as the institution's Head of Market Insight. He is also a keen amateur triathlete and has now qualified for the end-of-series finals in December.

Appearances

Series 57

Terry first appeared on Countdown in November 2007, just two weeks after the show (and Channel 4 itself) celebrated 25 years on-air. His first match was against two-time winner Martin Sears, and won comfortably despite being beaten to the conundrum by Sears, however in his second match against Carl Dundas, he was ten behind heading into the crucial conundrum (55 – 65), in which he successfully unscrambled SOMGNOCHI into SMOOCHING, one and a half seconds in to take it to a tie-break, but neither player could translate PISAHARRY into HAIRSPRAY, and therefore, an extremely rare third televised conundrum (and second tie-break) was to be contested. Unfortunately for Terry, he was beaten to the buzzer by Dundas, who declared INVENTING after just over three seconds, thus ending Newnham's first run.

Series 90

Seventeen years later, Newnham returned to the Countdown studio (albeit in Salford, not Leeds) where he faced off against another returnee in Neil Massey, who had just won his teapot after failing the first time in 2002. He kicked off with an eight-letter word in the first round, and never lost the lead from there, clinching his second teapot with a walkover final numbers game. He went on to score his first century in his second game, defeating Graeme McDonald by thirty-four points despite missing the nine-letter-word COARSENED, which unusually turned out to be the only nine available across all his heats. His third game against Elizabeth O'Neill went to a crucial conundrum, with Terence ahead by a solitary point, and it took seventeen seconds until a buzz from Terence with a declaration of FORBIDDEN, kept him in the champion's chair for another day. He then went on to win an additional five games to get his tally of eight, finishing with a final total of 730 as the provisional fourth seed and an all but assured place in the series quarter-finals as Colin christened him The Gentleman.

Rob Barkess lay waiting for Newnham, although it was Terence who immediately raced off to a 15-point lead. Despite Barkess taking some points back in the last numbers round, he never surrendered to secure a giant-killing victory, end Barkess's unbeaten run and march onto a semi-final against Fiona Wood.

Newnham and Wood stayed within close range of each other for most of their semi-final, until Fiona struck a killer blow with the crucial nine-letter-word spot of ENDORSING which Terence did not see, to build up an unassailable lead and officially end Terence's second run on the show. After the sixth conundrum in a row for these finals went unsolved, Terence bowed out of the tournament with a total of 906 points from ten games, to add to the 161 points he scored back in Series 57.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
4482	15/11/2007	P	Martin Sears	62 – 96	Terry Newnham	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Keith Barron	Alison Heard	143
4483	16/11/2007	P	Terry Newnham	65 – 75*	Carl Dundas	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Keith Barron	Alison Heard	120
8364	30/09/2024	P	Neil Massey	60 – 79	Terence Newnham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Debbie McGee	Susie Dent	120
8365	01/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	100 – 66	Graeme McDonald	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Debbie McGee	Susie Dent	133
8366	02/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	77 – 66	Elizabeth O'Neill	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Debbie McGee	Susie Dent	123
8367	03/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	95 – 59	Dave Moran	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Debbie McGee	Susie Dent	124
8368	04/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	110 – 37	Greg Bond	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Debbie McGee	Susie Dent	123
8369	07/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	91 – 57	Melissa Flynn	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pam Ayres	Susie Dent	125
8370	08/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	95 – 58	Kim Binks	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pam Ayres	Susie Dent	122
8371	09/10/2024	P	Terence Newnham	83 – 81	Tom Read	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pam Ayres	Susie Dent	123
8419	16/12/2024	QF	Rob Barkess	87 – 100	Terence Newnham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Christopher Biggins	Susie Dent	164
8422	19/12/2024	SF	Fiona Wood	111 – 76	Terence Newnham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Christopher Biggins	Susie Dent	133

* includes 10 points from a tie-break conundrum