Cold Turkey on Boxing Day Quiz | Mixed Nations

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Food at the cricket is often expensive, so we usually pack up some sangers for later consumption. Make mine cold turkey! But...what's a sanger?

Answer: Sandwich

What used to be unimaginatively called 'bread and cheese' or 'bread and meat' was renamed thanks to John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. In Australia, filling inside two slices of bread is called a sandwich, while the same filling put into a bread roll is called...well....a roll.

I make it a point only to take a sandwich of cold turkey (or cold meats of any sort) to the cricket if I have a cooler box (ice chest) to take it in, to reduce the risk of food poisoning. For the same reason, I'd opt for cranberry sauce rather than mayonnaise to go with it.

2. By what name is the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the venue at which the Boxing Day cricket test takes place, affectionately known?

Answer: The G

The MCG, or the G, was an integral part of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, and apart from hosting cricket matches, is used for Australian Rules football games, concerts and other activities requiring lots of seating. At least one funeral has been held there.

Melbourne Park is a tennis venues, while the nearby Punt Road Oval is a training ground for the Richmond Football Club. There's no arena name the Don, to my knowledge.

3. The easiest way to get to the cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is to jump on a train and get off at one or the other of two nearby stations - which ones?

Answer: Jolimont or Richmond

The MCG is located in Yarra Park, in walking distance from Melbourne's city centre, and from both the Jolimont and Richmond stations. It is also well served by various trams running past its doors. The ground has a museum that houses memorabilia for both cricket and football.

4. There's a fierce and traditional rivalry between Australia and England in cricket, played out in a series that occurs every two years. By what name is that series known?

Answer: Ashes

The Ashes series is held alternately in Australia and England, and is (usually) a five-test series that tours the country. The Ashes tradition started in the 1882-83 series which saw the England team lose to Australia in England, in what was declared to be the death of English cricket.

5. What year saw the first international Boxing Day test held at the MCG?

Answer: 1950

The first international match, played against England in 1950, didn't actually start on December 26, but on December 22, with a rest day for Christmas Day in the middle. While the Boxing Day tradition is now regularly entrenched in the Melbourne sporting calendar, it wasn't always so.

It was held at the MCG only sporadically until 1980, when television rights made it a desirable addition to annual events, and a concerted marketing campaign made that happen.

6. How long was the longest recorded test cricket match in history?

Answer: Nine days

These days, test matches are played over five days, though they sometimes end earlier if each side has completed its allotted two innings. At the end of the five days, if there is no winner, the game is declared a draw.

The longest recorded test match took place in Durban (South Africa) in March 1939, with South Africa and England the protagonists.

7. Back to food, I can't help myself. What traditional Christmas food, whose name sounds as though it should be savoury but is actually sweet, always finds its way into my food stash for the Boxing Day cricket?

Answer: Mince pies

Mince pies are not made with meat nowadays, though they originally contained shredded meat and beef suet. Various dried fruits are minced up and mixed with butter, sugar, spices and brandy to make the yummy filling, which is encased in sweet shortcrust pastry. Mince pies are usually small pies of just two or three bites, though the mince is occasionally made into large pies.

8. There's always some wet blanket who wants to spoil someone else's fun. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground usually one such group won't join in the Mexican Wave (just called a 'wave' in some places) - who are they?

Answer: Melbourne Cricket Club members

The MCC members are notoriously proper, and won't generally join in when the wave is done, breaking its progress around the ground. This usually results in good-natured booing from the rest of the crowd. There's no real animosity though - it's all part of the tradition!

9. After a few drinks, the crowd sometimes gets a little unruly, especially on Boxing Day. Before the MCG was remodelled in around 2013 one section of the crowd was notorious for its bad behaviour. What was the name of the section of the ground in which these hooligans sat?

Answer: Bay 13

With the ground redevelopment, Bay 13 has disappeared, meaning there's not one place that the hooligans can congregate. This was done partly to make the ground more family friendly.

10. The cops are spoilsports when it comes to objects being tossed onto the playing arena. Occasionally a beach ball gets loose and bounces onto the field. What is its usual fate?

Answer: Deflated and thrown in the bin

A day at the cricket is at least seven hours - six hours of play with forty minutes for a lunch break and twenty minutes for the tea break. The beach balls serve as a distraction for those who get bored easily. Amid boos and hisses, the security guards or police charged with protecting the boundary line against streakers or other such marauders take any offending beach ball and deflate it. That doesn't stop the crowd though - they just pull another out of their bag, inflate it and start playing with it once more.

Source: Author VegemiteKid

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
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Cold Turkey on Boxing Day Trivia Quiz

Boxing Day is on December 26th, and in our house that means not (as you might think) a sleep in, but rather an early start to get to the cricket in time. It's an annual pilgrimage delayed only by inclement weather.

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