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Scott Mearns from Montrose in Scotland was champion of Series 41 and Championship of Champions X. A student at Leeds University when he appeared, Mearns foreshadowed his form on the programme by passing his audition with a 100% record. Famously wanting to "put Montrose on the map", Mearns amassed 80 points in his debut game against Bobby Johnson, before reeling off seven further wins to become an octochamp with an aggregate score of 510, and #1 seed for the series finals. Therein, he beat Rory Dunlop and Melvin Hetherington in his quarter-final and semi-final respectively, the latter performance including 10 points for unravelling the conundrum HOTWARMER. Mearns then reached the boil for the grand-final against #3 seed Simon Cooper, broadcast on Christmas Day 1999.

A promising selection in round 1 prompted Mearns to risk the invalid niner mortalise ☓, gifting Cooper an early advantage. However, Mearns was not trailling for long as his favoured 6 small numbers selection helped him to steal the lead from Cooper in round 3. After Mearns solved the conundrum PIESNMASH in round 7, he lead by 18 points. Flat letters selections resulted in a largely uneventful remainder of the game, though Mearns widened the gap to 25 points after his second numbers game. Cooper attempted a comeback with, solving the last numbers game and the conundrum PARTYNITE, but it was too little too late as Mearns ran out the winner 81 – 73.

Mearns returned for the five game Championship of Champions X, wherein he was seeded to automatically reach the semi-final. He defeated Series 39 octochamp Terry Knowles to reach the New Year's Eve final, broadcast exactly one week after his series win. Mearns overwhelmed Kate Ogilvie, scoring 82 points to 56, to win the mini-series and claim the title of Countdown's tenth Champion of Champions. He is arguably one of the best 9 round players to have not contested the Supreme Championship. (more...)

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