Fin and John G were probably the 2 worst DOND contestants at the time! Both were reckless. Bad idea of bringing them along!

This time a decade ago, April 2006 kicked off in fairly middling style when Steve came to the table, hoping to turn the luck after the legendary month of March was rounded out with 2 trainwrecks in the form of Lucy and Janet

Steve had average luck and pretty poor offers throughout, especially after 11-box when his board started to fall apart after peaking at £13,005, and at 5-box, he looked to be on the verge of disaster when he had four blues/£35k and a pretty much forcing offer of £1,305 (although £900 Dave and £700 Rosie have dealt for sub-£1,000 on the same board ). Steve got his much needed all-blue sixth round and recovered to a £750/£35,000 finish, where his offer was an insulting £7,000, which he DEALT! He got away with it though as he only had £750 in his box

Steve's game was basically a poor person's version of Okiem's game, he had a peanuts/£35k 5-box, an all-blue final round, a blue/£35k final 2 where he dealt, and he had the blue in his box. However, the banker's stingyness and the fact that Steve dealt at such a stingy final offer, made Steve's game feel somewhat unexciting in comparison to Oak's game

A few observations here were:

- Steve's girlfriend in the audience saying the last offer was 'crap'!
- This is when Pat M first started to become a big character on the wings
- April Fool's Jokes including the show's logo saying "Noel Or No Deal" when it appeared on the board in the intro and the banker being credited as 'Richard Oldman' in the credits!
- The newbie Maxine, who would only go on to do a stint of 11 shows, was one of a handful of players (besides the first 25 players who played before Raj) who didn't witness a blue win on the wings, nor did she win a blue in her own game


Some memorable players on the wings were:

Sandra
Gabrielle
Johnnie
Kirsty
Massimo
JT
Pat M
Pat G
Cathy
Maxine
Fadil
James Thirkettle
£29,999 Gary
"Am i far from Dim?" Linda

SO many legends on the wings at the time, with Claire, Dave W, £50k Hillary and Morris making their debuts in the next few shows!

It's 9 years since Philomena's game. She won £250 in what was the unluckiest game in months, with her offers never getting above £5k, which must have been a real shock to everyone at the time after all the big wins of the 'Wakey Winter'. If memory serves, the last game to have a lower peak offer was Sharron's the previous August...

Sharron's peak offer was £4,500, so marginally higher. At the time of Philomena's game, Ken, Tracey and Alan were the only players to have a peak offer lower than £4,000!

It sure felt strange having such bad luck and low offers during the 'wakey winter'. Luckily though, Philomena's game was pretty much the last bad game in the Jean-Tanweer run of OPLs, huge amounts being missed out on, hypo-swaps ruining feel good endings and blue wins, before things began to turn around!

Some memorable moments in Philomena's game were

- Philomena summing up the game quite well by saying "dreadful" when the £10k went at 9-box, leaving the £1k and £5k the only reds at 8-box
- Power-cut Kerry sobbing after she revealed the £1,000 when it was the second highest amount, and then everyone cheering the £750 being revealed like it was the 1p, when it was the second-highest amount
- Someone in the audience chanting "Blue" when only blues remained at 3-box

10 years ago, Sandra did one of the worst deals of Season 1, perhaps even of all time, where she dealt at a woeful £12,900 on a £250/£1k/£10k/£50k/£100k 5-box and had the perfect round, leaving her with a squandered £50k/£100k finish and a final offer of £71,000! To make matters worse, she had the £100,000 on the table!

That makes it clear she didn't know the %. These days the offer would have been around £20,000+.

Sandra missed out what was possibly THE easiest £100k win of all time

For the second day running, it was an awful deal by underselling a £100k box for far less. It also happened in Johnnie's game the day before, where he missed out on £100k by dealing for £8,300 at 11-box! (Mind you, Johnnie's offer was much more generous for his board as he really only had the £75k and £100k representing the huge numbers at 11-box, and then £1k, £3k and £10k I think. Nowadays it would probably be £8,300 with those 5 reds vs. 3 blues at 8-box!)

Sandra's game was the first of 2 statistically awful deals during this week in 2006, with another one to follow a couple of days later, in which the proveouts went MUCH differently!

It's also been 10 years since the first ''HILARIOUS MATE'' instance of an audience member being thrown out.

Well that said, it hadn't happened before and it was genuinely funny this first time around. A student chap stood up when Noel instructed the audience to ''stand if you'd deal'' and when Tidybeard gave the standing man the inquisition, he told him ''she should deal as it's worth another round''. It's unsure whether Eddie the Edmonds construed this as hopeless confusion or someone pulling his pisser (definitely the latter) but he produced a red card and slung him out.

Of course there's a small chance that, while the student's feigned confusion was genuine, the 'red card and OUT' pay-off was a contrivance to produce a ''classic TV moment, lads'' in the same way Bradley from The Chase 'spontaneously crumples up with laughter'.

And then, years later, the 'Noel throwing people out' gag got flogged to death and became annoying

I just realised, exactly one year after the young man was red-carded by Noel, Kerry was given a yellow card by Noel after more or less garbling her words giving advice after the banker increased Charlie's offer from £22,000 to £25,000!

"£25,000 feels like more than £22,000 because it is"

Speaking of which, Charlie's £32k OPW was the much needed turning point that ended the run of unfortunate games since Sheran! And after this was when the games began to improve and more characters appeared on the wings as the annoying blue chants began to slowly get phased out

A whole decade today since JT's game where he dealt at an insulting £39,000 on a £500/£20,000/£50,000/£100,000/£250,000.....and got away with it as he took the three highest numbers in the final round, earning him a spanking!

8 years ago, poor old Derek Brown earned his short-lived title of DoND's unluckiest player ever, after an absolutely horrible game where his offers peaked at just £1,300 (making it the lowest peak offer ever at the time!) and he ended up with £5 (Speaking of which, i forgot yesterday's 4th anniversary of £750 Becky being the first and only player to win a blue AND have an OPW!)

I don't think there is really much point in me posting anything on here right now, as the forum will be clos to dormant for the next 6 month+ while DoND is off our screens!

JT was also on Tipping Point in May 2013.

He was also on the second episode of Rebound.

So this time 10 years ago, we were saying goodbye to JT, but it this time, we had Pat M, Dave W, Fadil, Morris, Claire, Pat G, Gabrielle and James Thirkettle on the wings!

(Speaking of whom, James looked like a teenager at the time, but now he'd be in his mid-30s!!)

Had JT known the % he may have gone on but thankfully he dealt.

4 years to this day was when poor old Bob won 1p after UNDEALING £5,000 when he was given the banker's gamble on a 1p/£35k finish

I've noticed that for a long time, Early April has been good memorable games (for better or for worse):

2006 had Kirsty, JT and Fadil

2007 had Charly, Kerry, and err.....Bunnie reappearing for Easter in Dee's game

2008 had Big Ron, Rachel winning £20k after a run of bad luck and Derek's memorable trainwreck

2009 had Lisa winning £50,000 on the 1000th show and 97-year-old Joe

2010 had Andy's £13k win doubling to £26k with the Easter twist, Brenda winning nothing, and £77k Ramesh

2011 had Paul's underrated £20k box win (2 memorable £20k box wins on April 5!) and £46k Sophie being the first power 5 win since Dale

2012 had a much-needed OPW from Phyl, Becky having a £750 OPW and Bob winning 1p

2013, well it more late March that had the memorable games leading into Easter, but the first week of April had Ben & Gary and great OPW's from Kirsty and a not-quite OPW but still £48k win from Lee

But since then, the tradition has kind of fizzled, mostly due to horse-racing breaks around this time

Half a decade ago, and the last time April 10 fell on a Sunday, was Sophie who scored a fabulous OPW by dealing for £46,000, making it the first power 5 win since Dale!

This time a decade ago. Maxine took the walk of wealth, and since she had personal commitments, Maxine only did a stint of 11 shows on the west wing and didn't witness any blue wins on the wings (The lowest win she witnessed was Steve's £7,000 on her first show)!

Her game was pretty average for the first half, but was remembered for being the first time the banker had increased his initial offer! Maxine was offered £4k or something at 8-box, but she managed to sweet-talk the banker into INCREASING it to £6,100!

There was a bit of tension towards the end when Maxine declined her highest offer of the game, £9,000 on a 3-blues/£10k/£100k 5-box similar to Gaz (who was yet to make his debut on the wings). She almost pulled it off, but lost the £100k in the last box!

Left with a £750/£10,000 final 2, Maxine declined the final offer of a rather forcing £2,900 and opened her box to win......£10,000! So Maxine spanked the banker as the amount she won out of her box was greater than her highest offer!

10 years ago, it was easter in the dream factory, the boxes were yellow, and Pat was still as mad as ever!

It was also the first ever post-game banker handout as Gabrielle was donating her winnings to charity. She had a pretty unlucky game throughout, and managed to salvage a consolation of £1,000 at the end by swapping away £50, and her winnings were doubled to £2,000!

Given this was an isolated case of banker handouts in the mostly gimmick-free early days, as well as it being easter and Gabrielle's reason for wanting the money, it didn't seem too bad. I think PJ's game was the first time we really got a ridiculous banker handout at the end, then it got ridiculous from Season 3 onwards, with players with sob-stories recieving unwarranted bonuses from the banker and players still 'winning' holidays during themed weeks despite failing on the 5-box twists

10 years ago yesterday was the lovely Scouse Claire who got off to a strong start, but broke down in tears as her game crashed near the end and she cut her losses for £1,500


10 years ago today, poor old Dave became the 3rd member of the 1p club But his brother Jez in the audience told him "It's OK"!

Was Fadil not the third, and Dave the fourth?