With the Regional Championships just a few weeks away — here's a little something to put player's minds at rest if they think that a stinker of an opening or a truly disastrous ending could see their chances of coming in the prizes go up in smoke from the confines of the judge's box.

Start and finish

Browsing through some old reference material we came across the adjudication remarks from the 1965 National Final at the Royal Albert Hall. The test piece was Gilbert Vinter's 'Triumphant Rhapsody'.

"The tuning of the first note was awful,"Vinter, who was one of the judges in the box on the day, wrote about one band that took to the stage, before quickly adding; "The tempo was good however, and the sound alive, though perhaps a bit rough.

The allegro was technically very clear and vital, but the intonation isn't all it should be..."

Rough

Meanwhile, Eric Ball added that the band in question was "...rather over-forceful and intonation not close", with a "tendency to roughness".

Both judges made their remarks before the band in question had played 100 bars of the piece...

The ending!

Meanwhile — at the other end of the scale so to speak, one band produced a finish that brought Vinter to exclaim in ink; "Oh! Dear! — the end has fallen to pieces!!"and was "such a let down".

Eric Ball simply added, as if recalling the disaster of the Hindenburg airship, "...but the ending!!"

You would have thought that such remarks nowadays would spell a lowly finish for the protagonists involved?

You would have thought that such remarks nowadays would spell a lowly finish for the protagonists involved?4BR

Where they came?

However, the band that made such an underwhelming start — GUS (Footwear) — eventually came third, whilst the band that fell off the edge of the cliff to close — Kinneil Colliery — ended up one point behind them in fourth.

We wonder if the judges around the country this year will so sympathetically understanding...