From bombing his A-levels… meet the King of Countdown: He’s the superfan who notched up the highest score in the show’s 40-year history – and celebrated with Doritos and cake. So what’s next? Winning Pointless with his mum!
- Tom Stevenson, 21, has been on chat shows, radio and news all over the world
- He’s been feted as ‘an idol’ and ‘ a hero’ and hailed an ‘inspiration’ by a teacher
- He triumphed on Channel 4’s countdown, smashing two highly coveted records
- Mr Stevenson secured the highest score ever and also won eight rounds in a row
Tom Stevenson is a touch crumpled and rumpled. His hair is unkempt, his Harry Potter specs smeary and his eyes are a bit pink around the edges.
Frankly, it’s little wonder, though, because Tom’s usually quiet life — of university lectures, badminton, vegetarian meal deals and watching Eurovision repeats and gentle TV quiz shows with his mum — has been turned upside down.
Instead, over the past two weeks or so, the 21-year-old has been popping up on TV chat shows, the radio and news outlets around the world. He’s been feted on Twitter as ‘an idol’ and ‘a hero’ and hailed ‘an inspiration’ by one of his teachers at secondary school.
He’s been asked for selfies in his local pub and at the University of Worcester, where he’s doing English Literature and Media Studies. Walking down the street with me, someone shouts: ‘Ooh, Tom — I should ask for a photo!’
Earlier this week, the children at his old primary school went ‘berserk’ when he popped in to see them.
‘It’s all had a very interesting impact on my life,’ he says quietly. ‘I’ve had a lot of attention — from people I know, people I don’t know, and people I haven’t spoken to for years. A friend’s nan, who I’ve never met, sent me a card and a bottle of Prosecco. So kind!’
He even had an approach suggesting that if ever he fancied a job in cryptocurrency, to get in touch.
Tom Stevenson, 21, may live a quiet life but he has been hailed an ‘inspiration’ after he smashed two highly coveted Countdown records
‘But that’s not the route I’m planning to go down, so I politely declined,’ Tom says.
Golly, so what great human feat triggered all this hullaballoo? Did he win the Nobel Prize, find a cure for cancer, or make a billion on Bitcoin? No, no and no.
Tom triumphed on Countdown, the cult Channel 4 programme which has been beloved by students, pensioners, housewives and anyone with nothing better to do at ten past two every weekday afternoon for 86 series over the past 40 years.
He did not just triumph, though: Tom smashed two existing and highly coveted records. For highest score in a round ever — 154 — beating the 152 points secured by Elliott Mellor in 2019. And for becoming the first octochamp (winning eight heats) without losing a single of his 120 consecutive rounds — and propelling him into the grand final, which was recorded earlier this month and will be aired at Christmas.
When his series of shows were aired recently, the surprisingly large and extremely committed Countdown community went into meltdown.
They were almost as animated as the show’s host, Colin Murray, who was beside himself as he roared out: ‘Tom Stevenson, you are one buzz away from history!’ when the highest scoring record was in his sights.
Meanwhile, Tom’s unfortunate opponent, Lauren, sat there with a score of just 28, presumably rueing the day she was drawn against Countdown’s best contestant ever. (‘Though she was very nice about it afterwards,’ Tom tells me.)
Wearing his lucky blue and cream tropical shirt — ‘I passed my driving test in it, so it feels very lucky’ — Tom remained calm and quiet as he crunched sums and conundrums with his huge bouncy brain. Most of all, though, he was just marvelling that, after endless attempts, he’d finally made it onto his favourite quiz show ever.
He secured the highest score in a round ever — 154 — beating the 152 points secured by Elliott Mellor in 2019
‘I was surprisingly relaxed,’ he says. ‘I just wanted to win a round, not disgrace myself and not be ridiculed online.’
Ridiculed? He’s the Cristiano Ronaldo of Countdown! And let’s not forget, this is a show populated by highly skilled contestants who love nothing more than wrestling with knotty letters and numbers problems against a ticking clock.
It’s all the more remarkable when you find out that two years earlier, Tom had bombed his A-levels (three unflattering D grades). ‘I was gutted — I felt very low,’ he says quietly.
Before that, he had also underachieved in his GCSEs — most disappointingly in maths. And the rest of that year, he had suffered such bad agoraphobia that he struggled to leave the house at all.
‘I stopped going to school regularly and cut myself off,’ he says.
He took solace in Countdown.
‘My great-grandmothers were both fans, so I’d watched for years,’ he says. ‘But that summer, it was a big comfort. It was calming — it took me to a different place. I watched it every day.’
And when he felt a bit better, he applied to appear on the show as a contestant. Quite a few times, as it turns out — along with Pointless, Mastermind and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
‘I was good on the sofa and I wanted to show people that there is life after bad grades and that you can still do well,’ he says.
It took a while but when, finally, after years of silence, the call from the Countdown team came earlier this year, it couldn’t have been better timing.
‘It was a tough year, my family members were unwell, I had a lot of work to do and I didn’t feel I had very much to look forward to,’ he says. ‘I was just hoping to have a bit of fun.’
He shot through the telephone audition — ‘I got a nine-letter word, so I was hopeful’ — and started limbering up for the recording sessions in August.
‘Sofa Tom’ was OK at it but I didn’t know how good ‘Studio Tom’ would be,’ he says.
Not that he needed much pre-match training. (However, his commitment was such that he skipped his own 21st birthday celebration, just in case he caught Covid in the run-up to filming.)
It helps that he has always shone at times tables and has a brain that is constantly whirring — making anagrams out of place names, people’s names and pretty much anything he can see.
He’s a subscriber to the Countdown app and a keen member of Apterous, an online group set up by a former Countdown player, in which former champions, runners up and wannabe champs battle it out for glory and share tips.
It’s all the more remarkable when you find out that two years earlier, Tom had bombed his A-levels (three unflattering D grades)
Tips? Oh yes, everything from how speed up your mental arithmetic, how to solve anagrams with a mind bank of ‘falsies’ (letter combinations you recognise) and how to spot suffixes and prefixes to help with the final conundrum.
Which came in handy when, in a flurry of glory, he came up with ‘volunteer’ in just three seconds and secured his place in history.
While Colin, the presenter, was going bananas at this seminal moment in Countdown history, Tom remained calm: ‘My mum thinks maybe it’s because I’ve always seen Countdown as a comfort, not a stress.’
Whatever, it worked. Even if, by the end of 120 rounds he was so shattered he was having to mainline flapjacks and cola. And there wasn’t any champagne, because Tom is teetotal — though he did have celebratory cake and Doritos. Of course, all this happened back in August, when the show was filmed. Tom was sworn to secrecy until transmission. ‘I thought there might be a little bit of fuss, but not this,’ he says. He admits that while his family has been amazing, his younger sister is a bit ‘Countdowned out’ by it all now. Happily, the public response has been overwhelmingly positive and congratulatory.
‘Someone said I looked ‘like Harry Potter after a bender’, which I found quite funny,’ he says. There were also a few appreciative comments from the ladies. So any romantic interest?
‘A little bit, maybe, but nothing particular, yet,’ he smiles shyly.
Unsurprisingly, Tom is not a one quiz sort of chap; last year he applied for University Challenge — in his eyes, the jewel in the quiz crown. Sadly, Worcester didn’t have sufficient eager eggheads to muster the requisite team of five (four with one reserve). Tom now fancies a pop on Millionaire and Pointless — partnering with his mum — both of which offer cash prizes rather than the Countdown teapot, which looks great on the mantlepiece but isn’t much help in paying off his student loan.
For now, though, he’s got other fish to fry. As well as the Grand Final for series 86, he’ll battle it out in Countdown’s Champion of Champions round — the best of the past four years.
Meanwhile, he is just happy to revel in the glory of the moment. ‘Of course, someone might beat the record for the highest score down the line,’ he says. ‘But that’s fine. The fact that I achieved it! That’s good enough for me.’
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