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THE ACADEMIC WOODEN SPOON AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The wooden spoon was originally associated with the Mathematical Tripos at the University Of Cambridge , and was a kind of Booby Prize awarded by the students to the person who achieved the lowest exam marks, but still earned a Third-class Degree . In contrast, the highest-scoring student was named the '' Senior Wrangler ''. The custom dates back at least to the early 19th century, if not before, and continued until 1909. From 1910 onwards the results have been given in alphabetical rather than score order, and so it is now impossible to tell who has come last, unless there is only one person in the lowest class. There were actual wooden spoons which became increasingly large, and in latter years measured up to 1.5 metres long. By tradition they were dangled in a teasing way from the upstairs balcony in the Senate House in front of the lowest-ranked recipient when he came before the Vice Chancellor to receive his degree. The last wooden spoon The last wooden spoon was awarded to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St. John's College, Cambridge in 1909 at the graduation ceremony in the University's Senate House. The handle is shaped like an oar and inscribed with an epigram in Greek which may be translated as follows: ::''In Honours Mathematical ::''This is the very last of all'' ::''The Wooden Spoons which you see here'' ::''O you who see it, shed a tear'' Alternatively: "This wooden object is the last souvenir of the competitive examinations in mathematics. Look upon it, and weep." One spoon is now in the possession of St. John's College, and another is kept at the Selwyn College, Cambridge library. The wooden wedge There was an equivalent prize for the last-placed Classicist called the "wooden wedge", first won in 1824 by Hensleigh Wedgwood (1803-91) of the Wedgwood pottery family. THE WOODEN SPOON IN SPORT Rowing "Spoons" are also awarded to Oxbridge college rowing crews who go down four places in a Bumps Race , or to the boat finishing bottom of the river, something usually to be avoided. In theory, such a crew is allowed to paint a wooden spoon in their club colours and write their names on it as a trophy of their "achievement": this is rarely done but occasionally done by the less serious "beer boats" in the May (summer) Races. Rugby Union How the Cambridge wooden spoon idea came to be used in Rugby Union is not exactly known, but in the early years of what is now the Six Nations Championship there were many Cambridge graduates playing, so they may have attempted to preserve the concept after the last one was awarded in 1909. It is certain, in any case, that the tradition first arose in Cambridge and rugby adopted and perpetuated the tradition. Nowadays the Wooden Spoon is awarded to any team who finishes at the bottom of the table in the RBS 6 Nations held every year between England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. No physical Wooden Spoon exists or has ever existed in the case of rugby, however. Such is the stigma of the award that the 'winners' will sometimes claim that the Wooden Spoon should only be held by those who win no games at all, but this achievement is properly known as a Whitewash . In 1983, a group of English rugby union supporters, while drinking in a Dublin bar and commiserating over England's award of the Wooden Spoon in the then Five nations championship for that year, decided to form a charity. It was named the ''Wooden Spoon Society'' and raises funds for disadvantaged children in the UK and Ireland. Today (2007) it is recognised as the official charity of British and Irish rugby. It has a small central office, over 40 voluntary regional committees, 11,000 social members, and has distributed over £12m. Australian and New Zealand sports The term is commonly used in Australian and New Zealand sporting competitions, most notably in the major football leagues (such as the NRL , Air New Zealand Cup , and the AFL ) to refer to the club positioned last on the league table at the end of a season. AFL =1916 Wooden Spoon In the war-time season of 1916, only four teams competed. Fitzroy finished last after the home-and-away season with a record of 2-9-1, and Richmond finished third with a record of 5-7-0. Fitzroy then won three consecutive finals games to claim the premiership, with Richmond shifting into overall last place as the lowest placed semi-final loser. There is hence some uncertainty regarding which team won the wooden spoon in that season. One side of the debate says that since Fitzroy performed most poorly during the bulk of the season, they deserved the ignominy of the spoon. Conversely, official AFL rankings today will order teams according to their finals finishing order when considering the allocation of draft picks - had a draft existed in 1916, Richmond would have been officially recorded as the overall bottom team, and received the first pick as consolation. The other consideration is the final winning records. After the finals had finished, Fitzroy's final record was 5-9-1 from fifteen games, with a winning percentage of 36.7%, and Richmond's final record was 5-8-0 from thirteen games, with a winning percentage of 38.4%. So, Fitzroy won more games, and Richmond had a better winning percentage. The VFL/AFL have never sanctioned a wooden spoon award, so there is no way to categorically state which team "officially" won it. There is an argument to state that both teams lay claim to the 1916 spoon, and this is reflected in the table below. The entire confusing situation is now a regular Melburnian trivia night question. =Joffa's Wooden Spoon (from 2005) In a 2005 were going to lose the match. Unfortunately, this plan backfired, and Carlton were comfortable winners (although they still did win the wooden spoon in 2005). In a 2006 AFL game against Carlton, Joffa again brought the oversized wooden spoon. This time Collingwood triumphed and walked out 44 point winners against the Blues, who won the wooden spoon for the second time in a row. The spoon was confiscated as Joffa took it out two minutes early. =Molly Meldrum at the 1979 Grand Final On the 1979 Grand Final day, a group of stars from The ABC's Countdown took to the field to entertain the crowd with a frivolous exhibition of football. Each star ran out in the Guernsey of the team he supported, and keen Saints fan Ian "Molly" Meldrum carried with him a large wooden spoon, as the Saints had won by a clear three games that year. The incident was recently shown on music/comedy show Spicks And Specks . =Records and Trivia
=AFL Wooden Spoons
NRL
The wooden spoon in British ice hockey The wooden spoon has also become a tradition amongst the supporters of British Ice Hockey . The tradition began in 1999 after a less than successful inaugrual season for the London Knights , who had collected just ten wins and finished comfortably bottom of the Superleague . A group of London fans subsequently purchased a large wooden spoon in order to mark this fact which was proudly displayed amongst their supporters at the Play-Off Finals weekend in Manchester . Twelve months later the spoon returned to the Finals weekend, when it was given to a supporter of the Newcastle Riverkings, who had won just eleven times in forty-two games and had finished bottom of the Superleague by sixteen points. The tradition was born, each year at the Finals weekend the spoon is presented by the previous recipient to a supporter of the club which finished bottom of the league. That supporter is then entrusted with its safe keeping for the following twelve months and must bring it to the following Finals weekend in order to pass it on to a fan of the next club to have the 'honour' of receiving the reward. The tradition continued after the Superleague disbanded and was replaced by the Elite Ice Hockey League in 2003 . The Wooden Spoon is almost entirely a tradition amongst fans, though in 2005 , Basingstoke Bison head coach Mark Bernard accepted it on behalf of his team. The Spoon has had engraved onto it the name of each of its recipient clubs and remarkably has never been lost or misplaced and found its way back to the Finals weekend every year. Rather ominiously, only three of the eight recipient clubs so far continue to exist and only the two most recent 'winners' continue to play ice hockey in the country's highest league.
THE READY STEADY COOK WOODEN SPOON The BBC 's cookery Gameshow Ready Steady Cook gives a decorated wooden spoon to its losing participants (there are two contestants on each show). It is not by any means the sort of memorabilia you might find bought and sold regularly over EBay , but holds an amount of prestige for minor celebrities in Britain who have appeared on the celebrity version of the show. SEE ALSO
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