AN Irvine team tested their knowledge on a popular BBC quiz show last week.

The Marymass Mob, all associated with Irvine Folk Club, took on the some of the UK’s top quizzers in top BBC2 show Eggheads last Thursday.

The team included sound engineer John Weatherby, fellow sound engineer Kris Koren, retired operations engineer Stewart Durham, construction company boss Fraser Bruce and songwriter and performer Rab Noakes.

After the show, Fraser Bruce told the Irvine Times: “I was a bit apprehensive about being even slightly involved in it as I’ve never taken part in a pub quiz in my life.

“When Joyce Piper, who runs the Irvine Folk Club, phoned up we were already booked to do Marymass – so felt obliged to say yes in case she cancelled my booking.

“It was great fun, really good fun. Lots of people said they watched it just because we were on, so got all these emails congratulating us saying we did well.”

On the programme, John Weatherby admitted they weren’t the best when it came to quizzes.

He said: “Our team has been specifically chosen due to their availability.”

John first took questions on History, but was unfortunately knocked out the competition with only 2/3 correct answers.

Rab faired better taking questions on Arts and Books, getting three correct answers before knocking the Egghead out the game in the sudden death round.

It was then up to Fraser Bruce to take questions on Sport – as he’s known to have ‘kicked a ball before’.

After a tie with two correct answers each, it again went into sudden death, with Fraser winning the round for the Marymass Mob.

With the Irvine contenders ‘shaking the ground’ for the Eggheads, the game was all to play for with the folk fans’ next round being Music.

After three correct answers each, Kris missed out on the sudden death question – through not being familiar with the work of Ed Sheeran.

With John and Kris eliminated from the game, the team continued into the final round.

With two correct answers against the Egghead’s three, the team sadly missed out on the £5,000 prize, but still had a grand time at the studio.

Fraser added: “Jeremy Vine’s a cracking guy, really nice. The Eggheads team, you think of them being a bit dour, but they weren’t at all. Really nice bunch of people. Really friendly and made you relax.

“It took about five hours to record the thing. There was a lot of patter going on between the two teams so more like being in your front room than in front of television cameras.

“I can imagine Mastermind must be absolutely terrifying, but this was quite relaxed.

What I’ve realised from watching it is there’s certain facial expressions I won’t use from now on.

“Watching your concentration face, or watching your happy face and watching your surprised face, really isn’t very pleasant. It was great fun though.

“It was fun. It was representing Irvine Folk Club and Marymass Festival. Rab Noakes and me have played Marymass many times, and John and Chris do sound engineering all over the country.”

“The funny thing was we were all sat round in a group and Stewart Durham, none of us knew who he was. Turns out he goes to the folk club, but no one had told us he was on our team. He’s a cracking wee guy.”