Feargal wins All-Ireland Scrabble title
Wednesday March 16 2011
COUNTY WEXFORD has a new Irish champion after New Ross man Feargal Weatherhead brought home All-Ireland honours from the Irish Scrabble Championships.
Feargal beat off competition from 39 other scrabble enthusiasts to be crowned the Irish champion following the two day championship, which was held in the Ambassador Hotel in Cork.
The Championship took place over two full days, with each person having to play 14 games where they were given 25 minutes to play their portion of the game.
The two main contenders were the current champion, Paul Gallen from Belfast and Kevin McMahon from Dublin. Paul raced off into an early lead on the Saturday not losing a single game, whereas Kevin lost two games and was in a strong third place. But sneaking up on the inside was Feargal Weatherhead from Chambersland who was in second place at end of play on Saturday with seven wins out of eight.
On Sunday morning, with six more games to go, Paul lost two games, one to Feargal and one to another previous champion and at lunch break, Feargal went into the lead for the first time. However, there were three crucial games to go and Feargal ended up playing against Paul Gallen in the last two games. Paul won the first one convincingly, which meant that both men were on eleven games and whoever won the last game would be champion.
The words played on this board, including tottered, powerful, visons, abafts, vendees, clearly demonstrated the stiff competition and the broad range of vocabulary used. Feargal eventually won out the game to take the overall title.
Feargal has only been playing competitive Scrabble since 2005, but has been climbing the ratings steadily.
His wife Pauline had to perform the pleasant task of presenting him with the trophy as part of her role of Chairperson of RISPA (Republic of Ireland Scrabble Players Association).
