West Midlands couple who are UK's longest serving pub quiz masters reveal 10 trickiest questions

A West Midlands couple have become the UK's longest serving pub quiz masters - after asking more than a whopping 450,000 questions over the last 30 years.

Geoff and Val King hosted their first quiz at The Longshoot Hotel in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1996 and are still reeling off the questions to pub-goers three decades later.

Despite leaving school with no qualifications, the pair now run five quizzes a week challenging some of Britain's brainiest teams. They have broken the record for the longest recorded pub quiz residency hosted by the same duo at a single venue anywhere in the United Kingdom.

The duo run quiz nights across five different venues Sunday to Thursday and have revealed it earns them more than £30,000 a year.

Grandad-of-four Geoff, 68, who worked in the motor trade and mobile DJ'ing before becoming a full-time quiz master, said: “I was first asked to do a quiz night in the mid 90s. All the usual quizzes were very much a pre and Second World War quiz, very historic. I said to Val that if we’re going to do it, let's make it fun for all knowledge levels. And that's how it started.

“It’s always been a slogan of mine, if you can get a year's residency out of a pub you are very lucky. On the ten year anniversary we didn’t think about it, but then 20 years came and we couldn't believe we were still doing it. And now we’re saying we’re the longest running duo, which we can’t believe. I say claiming it but I have proof that we are the longest duo to host a pub quiz in the same residency for over 30 years. There was one guy who came close in Manchester but he’s stopped."

Despite building up a compendium of knowledge without any academic qualifications, the pair don't feel quite ready to take on the Chasers or Eggheads just yet.

Geoff added: “If I knew everything I would go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and win and not do this. I’ve got a great memory for questions that I've asked so I know not to repeat them. I’m not the Brain of Britain, but I’ve got a good memory.

“I left school not very well educated, I kept getting kicked out of class. My end of year report said goodbye to the best laugh in class. I’ve got no degrees, no O-Levels, no results - you don’t need qualifications to be a quizmaster."

Geoff now boasts a dedicated database of thousands of questions he has compiled by collecting over 30 quiz books to ensure no question is asked twice.

Each quiz consists of six rounds, with the questions tailored on the age ranges of the competing teams. In their three decades they are not far off asking nearly half a million tricky brain teasers - but Geoff revealed the hardest question people struggle with the most is surprisingly simple.

Geoff added: “We try to make sure every round caters for every age and knowledge level. We have an old crinkly section and a young supple section.

“I’ve got a database, when I see a quiz book I buy it. I’ve got quiz books going back to the 1980s. I have to check the facts as sporting feats often change, but usually they’re all fine.

"I always start with more questions than I need, I then choose the best 12 questions based on the crowd and the age group. We have six rounds, four spoken, a picture and an audio.

"Every quiz night has very strong teams, if a team wins three weeks in a row we ask them to start on the fourth week with a minus three point handicap. We always start the night with no mobile phones, of course no smart watches and then asking people not to go to the toilet.

“Every three years I will bring out a question that I've asked before that people always get wrong. What does the WD stand for in WD40? It often gets a lot of people - they think it’s so simple but it really isn’t."

Val, 70, said: “We never really thought about it then we realised that we’d gone into ten years. Then all of a sudden it was 20 and now all of a sudden it’s 30.

“We’ve made quite a few friends along the way. It’s always a very social occasion. But when people leave the pub after the quiz night and they’ve got a smile on their face, we know we’ve done our job right. The teams have all become quite good friends over the years. They all meet up and chat to each other, it’s lovely.”

Quizzer Nadine is a member of 'Team Nomad' and said her team has been competing in Geoff and Val's quiz since 2002.

Nadine, from Hinckley, Leicestershire, said: "It's good fun and they play some good music, and we like to challenge ourselves. We never win. We used to in the early days but we don't do anymore. We don't mind. Geoff, despite his bad jokes, is quite entertaining."

Densa Jack team member Haydon Davis, 62, from Nuneaton, said: "I come to meet up with a group of friends.

“We enjoy the quiz and it creates debate on the table. Sometimes arguments, but mostly debates. It's a fantastic quiz, it crosses all ages and we love the music round, especially when it's the oldies.

"It's a great social occasion and a chance to find out how clever or not so clever you are. Geoff is fantastic host and Val's brilliant."

Dawn Lemont, 63, from Nuneaton, said she's been attending the quiz for at least ten years.

She said: "We've got quite a lot of wins. My tips are - read the news and keep looking at quiz shows and picking up answers."

Geoff and Val's top 10 trickiest questions that catch people out the most

* Which London postal address has the postcode SW1A 1AA? Buckingham Palace.

* Which two creatures are featured on the Australian coat of arms? Kangaroo and an Emu.

* What two metals make up brass? Copper and Zinc.

* What do the initials BAFTA stand for? British Academy of Television Arts.

* Why do some football clubs have triangular corner flags and others have square? Triangular flags indicate the club, at some time, won the FA Cup.

* What kind of fruit is a pink lady? An apple.

* By law, what type of cheese can only be made in the counties Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire? Stilton.

* How many functioning funnels did the Titanic have? Three the fourth was fitted for aesthetic reasons but acted also a ventilation shaft whereas the other three carried out the function of remove the gases from the coal burning engines.

*In the 2002 football World Cup 'Fevernova' was the official name of what? The football used in all the matches.

* What is the height in inches of a table tennis net in the UK? 6"