Sheffield Oaks' captain and website writer Stuart Whiteley is hoping to put his recent appearance on TV word game Countdown behind him after being comprehensively beaten in one of the lowest scoring episodes of the show to date.   Whiteley's quest got off to a shaky start when he requested '3 voles and 6 continents', but things did look promising when he received the letters REYHOUNDG. Unfortunately the word RUG was not enough to win the round.  It went from bad worse in later rounds when the words DRONGO, DAG, and DUNNY were all disallowed. His only success came in a numbers round where he matched Carol Vorderman’s answer precisely, though it did emerge later that this was a fluke as he was merely trying to write BOOBS on his calculator at the time.

 

Difficulties had emerged earlier in the day as Whiteley attempted to direct the taxi driver to the Yorkshire TV Studios in Leeds, the cab made it just in time after leaving Crookes and getting stuck in traffic near Woodseats en route. This was an all to familiar story after early season Kickoffs were delayed due to the skipper heading to grounds in Mexborough, Driffield, Donnington, and perhaps most bizarrely he recently attempted to take a convoy to Weather Top - the Skipper later claimed it was an easy mistake to make after his Yorkshire AtoZ was replaced with a map of Middle Earth.

 

On a more positive note, Whiteley and SheffieldOaks.com have recently been nominated for a prestigious Sports NET award for Outstanding Contribution to on-line journalism. The Sports NET committee praised the unique style of the Oaks' match reports. A spokesman said "Most websites will stick to the bare facts of match. SheffieldOaks.com turns this formula on it’s head, inventing new terminology, improvising with the score, and renaming players at will. I was most impressed with the Mosborough match report where Graham Bulmer was renamed three times and the name of the opponents changed half way through."

 

Stuart Whiteley was immensely proud of the nomination “All the lads have worked hard on the pitch - Stelly, Bonzai, Chuck, Frits- they put the time and effort in on the field and I stick it on the page. At the end of the day it's all about avoiding clichés and adding some creativity, I'd be sick as a parrot if we went down the factual route. That's not going to happen, not on my watch.” 

SheffieldOaks.com proofreader, Winston the Dog, commended Whiteley. '”He hits it on the head first time, every time! I don't have to change a thing.'”  Winston has made a great difference behind the scenes at Oaks this season as he has been responsible for marking lines at Niagara, hand picking referees, and has given anger management lessons to Bonzo.