The Barking Dog quiz cheating: BBC visits pub

Huddled around their tables, locals poured into The Barking Dog each week to take on a pub quiz – but one thing was amiss.

The same team kept winning the prize of a £30 bar tab, leaving regulars scratching their heads and some stopped turning up in protest.

Then, a twist. Bosses at the pub in Urmston, Greater Manchester, said they received an anonymous tip-off and caught the team “cheating red-handed” when players were spotted whispering into their smartwatches to get answers.

They revealed the curious goings-on in an Instagram post last week – and it swiftly went viral, attracting interest from people around the world.

Here at the Barking Dog on a damp, dark Wednesday night this week, BBC News has come along to witness the first edition of the quiz since the scandal emerged.

And regulars have made a packed return, with 17 teams taking part, though the almost Traitors-like tale of alleged cheating looms large.

The suspect team, which managers are refusing to name, were banned from the quiz – but are welcome to still attend the pub – yet some regulars say the furore has left them “too scared” to wear their smartwatches.

One of the teams, comprising of Grace, Beth, Olivia, Ellie and Jack, has been entering the quiz for about three years.

They say they’re pleased the cheating team has finally been rumbled, as other teams had stopped coming. “It’s brought people back and it’s nice to see familiar faces back in the pub,” says Grace.

Olivia says the latest quiz has an electric atmosphere while Beth says the “drama” caused by the alleged cheating saga has been “insane”, with their teammate Ellie’s sister even talking about it in Australia.

They say they knew the cheating team had been up to no good for “ages”.

“It was so obvious,” Grace says, adding that on the music round the team would know all the answers and who featured on each track played on every genre, from 90s Hip Hop to Rock n Roll.

“We just thought at first they were incredibly intelligent,” she tells us.

However, she says it soon transpired “they weren’t quite the eggheads we thought they were”.

Jack is taking extra precautions tonight, though. “I didn’t wear my smartwatch because I didn’t want to be done,” he admits.

Try five questions from The Barking Dog’s pub quizzes in recent weeks.

Over on another table, Nia – who was taking part in the quiz with her friends Callum and Anastasia – says the recent media attention about their local pub quiz has been “crazy”.

She, too, says she has seen people “on their phones and smartphones” recently, but has not known for sure if they were cheating.

Rather than feeling robbed of a cash prize when he found out about the scandal, Callum says he actually found it “quite funny”.

Nia adds: “We never do well enough to come in the top three to be mad enough.”

As well as luring back regulars, the shenanigans have attracted new teams to the quiz, like John and Carole Kelly, who are entering for the first time.

Carole says she and John are desperate “to find out who it is, as everybody is”.

She says they have had a great night but they, too, are not daring to use their mobile phones even to check the time.

“I won’t even get my phone out of my bag,” Carole confesses.

Rob Hardie, co-director of the Barking Dog, says the cheating team was often getting the answers “pretty much 100% correct, which no one really does so it was a tell-tale sign that something was amiss”.

He says managers received an anonymous tip-off from a customer pointing out that the same team kept winning with near-perfect scores, prompting an investigation.

So how were the cheaters finally rumbled by the pub staff?

Bobby Bruen, assistant manager and quizmaster, says he devised some questions for a music round to make it highly unlikely anyone would get them all correct.

He says the team was then rumbled by Mr Hardie when he went outside and saw the players through a window looking at answers on their smartwatches, using the Shazam app to identify the songs.

Mr Hardie let his mother, Lynda, and sister, Lydia, have the table where the cheating team used to sit.

Lydia says the exposé has been “hilarious” although her mother feels it is a “shame people will resort to that in a local pub quiz”.

“It spoiled it for everyone, all the regulars stopped coming.”

Mr Bruen says he has been interviewed by radio stations as far away as New Zealand and Canada on the “massive whodunnit”.

As the night draws to a close here at the pub, the losers of the latest quiz – a team called Short, Bark and Sides – get a pack of Jammie Dodgers biscuits.

The winners of the £30 bar tab have a fitting name – Agatha Quiztie.