Wooden spoon (award)

A wooden spoon is a mock or real award, usually given to an individual or team which has come last in a competition, but sometimes also to runners-up. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous events. The term is of British origin and has spread to other Commonwealth countries.

Wooden spoon at the University of Cambridge

The wooden spoon was presented originally at the University of Cambridge as a kind of booby prize awarded by the students to the man who achieved the lowest exam marks but still earned a third-class degree (a junior optime) in the Mathematical Tripos. The term "wooden spoon" or simply "the spoon" was also applied to the recipient,^[1] and the prize became quite notorious:

And while he lives, he wields the boasted prize
Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise;
Displays in triumph his distinguish'd boon,
The solid honours of the Wooden Spoon

— "The Wooden Spoon" from The Cambridge Tart (1823)^[2]

The spoons themselves, actually made of wood, grew increasingly large, and in latter years measured up to 1.5 metres long. By tradition they were dangled in a teasing way from the upstairs balcony in the Senate House, in front of the recipient as he came before the Vice-Chancellor to receive his degree, at least until 1875 when such a practice was specifically banned by the University.^[3]^[4]

The lowest placed students earning a second-class (senior optime) or first-class degree (wrangler) were sometimes known as the "silver spoon" and "golden spoon" respectively.^[1] In contrast, the highest-scoring male student was named the "senior wrangler". Students unfortunate enough to place below the wooden spoon, by achieving only an Ordinary degree, were given a variety of names depending on their number.^[5]

The custom dates back at least to the late 18th century, being recorded in 1803,^[4] and continued until 1909^[6]. From 1910 onwards the results have been given in alphabetical rather than score order, and so it is now impossible to tell who has come last, unless there is only one person in the lowest class.^[4]

The last wooden spoon

The last wooden spoon was awarded to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St. John's College, Cambridge in 1909 at the graduation ceremony in the University's Senate House. The handle is shaped like an oar and inscribed with an epigram in Greek which may be translated as follows:

In Honours Mathematical
This is the very last of all
The Wooden Spoons which you see here
O you who see it, shed a tear

Alternatively:

This wooden object is the last souvenir of the competitive examinations in mathematics. Look upon it, and weep.

The last spoon to be awarded is now in the possession of St. John's College, and another is kept at Selwyn College library. From June 8, 2009 to June 26, 2009, St. John's College held an exhibition of the five surviving wooden spoons in College hands, from St. John's (the last one, dating from 1909), Selwyn's (dating from 1906)^[3], Queens' and Corpus Christi's) in its library to mark the centenary of the "awarding" of the last spoon of all.^[6] There are five known wooden spoons in private hands.^[4]

The wooden spoon in sport

Rowing

"Spoons" are awarded to Oxford and Cambridge rowing crews who are bumped down every day of the Bumps races, or to the boat finishing bottom of the river, something usually to be avoided. In theory, such a crew is allowed to paint a wooden spoon in their club colours and write their names on it as a trophy of their "achievement": this is rarely done but occasionally done by the less serious "beer boats" in the May (summer) Races.

Rugby Union

How the Cambridge wooden spoon idea came to be used in rugby union is not exactly known, but in the early years of what is now the Six Nations Championship there were many Cambridge graduates playing, so they may have attempted to preserve the concept after the last one was awarded in 1909. It is certain, in any case, that the tradition first arose in Cambridge and rugby adopted and perpetuated the tradition. In 1894 the South Wales Daily Post remarked that within the Home Nations Championships the 'Ireland-Wales match has been to decide which team should be recipient of the ignominious Wooden Spoon';^[7] one of the earliest mentions of the term within rugby union.

The Wooden Spoon is awarded to the team who finishes at the bottom of the table in the RBS 6 Nations held every year between Wales, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and England. No physical wooden spoon exists or has ever existed in the case of rugby, however.

Such is the stigma of the award that the 'winners' will sometimes claim that the Wooden Spoon should only be held by those who win no games at all, but this achievement is properly known as a whitewash.

In 1983, a group of English rugby union supporters, while drinking in a Dublin bar and commiserating over England's award of the Wooden Spoon in the then Five nations championship for that year, decided to form a charity. It was named the Wooden Spoon Society and raises funds for disadvantaged children in the UK and Ireland. Today (2007) it is recognised as the official charity of British and Irish rugby. It has a small central office, over 40 voluntary regional committees, 11,000 social members, and has distributed over £12m.

Australian and New Zealand sports

The term is commonly used in Australian and New Zealand sporting competitions, most notably in the major Australian rules, association and rugby football leagues (such as the NRL, ITM Cup, the AFL and the A-League) and the to refer to the club positioned last on the league table at the end of a season.

Australian Rules Football

1916 Wooden Spoon

In the war-time VFL season of 1916, only four teams competed. Fitzroy finished last after the home-and-away season with a record of two wins, nine losses and one draw (2-9-1), and Richmond finished third with a record of 5-7-0. Fitzroy then won three consecutive finals games to claim the premiership, with Richmond shifting into overall last place as the lowest placed semi-final loser. There is hence some uncertainty regarding which team won the wooden spoon in that season.

One side of the debate says that since Fitzroy performed most poorly during the bulk of the season, they deserved the ignominy of the spoon. Conversely, official AFL rankings today will order teams according to their finals finishing order when considering the allocation of draft picks - had a draft existed in 1916, Richmond would have been officially recorded as the overall bottom team, and received the first pick as consolation.

The other consideration is the final winning records. After the finals had finished, Fitzroy's final record was 5-9-1 from fifteen games, with a winning percentage of 36.7%, and Richmond's final record was 5-8-0 from thirteen games, with a winning percentage of 38.4%. So, Fitzroy won more games, and Richmond had a better winning percentage.

The VFL/AFL has never sanctioned a wooden spoon award, so there is no way to categorically state which team "officially" won it. There is an argument to state that both teams lay claim to the 1916 spoon, and this is reflected in the table below. The entire confusing situation is now a regular Melburnian trivia night question.

Records and trivia

Of the original VFL teams, who began in 1897, Carlton managed to avoid the wooden spoon the longest, finally claiming the spoon in 2002 after 106 seasons. Collingwood took the second-longest, claiming it in 1976. Prior to that, the question of who would receive it first was one of the factors that contributed to the traditional Carlton-Collingwood rivalry.
Essendon (1907–1908, six position improvement) and Collingwood (1976–1977, ten positions) are the only teams to have received the wooden spoon in one season and proceeded to the Grand Final the next season. No team has yet earned the spoon and then won the Grand Final the following season.
Melbourne and Brisbane jointly hold the record for the best recovery from a wooden spoon, 12 positions; Melbourne finished 16th in 1997 and rose to 4th in 1998. Brisbane finished 16th in 1998 and rose to 4th in 1999 under Leigh Matthews.
Carlton is the only team to have won the pre-season series and gone on to receive the wooden spoon in the season proper, in 2005. However, it must also be noted that in 1967, Footscray won the end-of-season night competition (which became the pre-season competition in 1988) after finishing last at the completion of the home and away season.
Of all the original teams from 1897, the Essendon Football Club currently hold the longest wooden spoon "drought", having not won it since 1933.
To date, no AFL team has ever won a wooden spoon due to salary cap breaches. Carlton, who finished last in 2002, were stripped of draft picks that year for gross salary cap breaches dating back to 1998 however it had nothing to do with the club finishing last that season. Carlton would struggle for the next six years, finishing second last the following year (2003) and in 2007, 11th twice (2004 and 2008) and two more wooden spoons (2005 and 2006) before finally reaching the finals in 2009.

AFL Wooden Spoons

Current AFL clubs are shown in bold.

#	Team	Spoons	Years
1	St Kilda 1897-	26	1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1904, 1909, 1910, 1920, 1924, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 2000
2	North Melbourne / Kangaroos 1925-	13	1926, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1940, 1956, 1961, 1968, 1970, 1972
3	Melbourne 1897-	13	1905, 1906, 1919, 1923, 1951, 1969, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1997, 2008, 2009, 2011
3	Hawthorn 1925-	11	1925, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1941, 1942, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1953, 1965
3	South Melbourne / Sydney Swans 1897-	11	1903, 1922, 1938, 1939, 1962, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1992, 1993, 1994
6	Fitzroy 1897-1996	8*	(1916*), 1936, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1980, 1995, 1996
7	Richmond 1908-	7*	(1916*), 1917, 1960, 1987, 1989, 2004, 2007
8	Geelong 1897-	5	1908, 1915, 1944, 1957, 1958
9	University 1908-1914	4	1911, 1912, 1913, 1914
9	Footscray / Western Bulldogs 1925-	4	1959, 1967, 1982, 2003
9	Essendon 1897-	4	1907, 1918, 1921, 1933
12	Carlton 1897-	3	2002, 2005, 2006
12	Brisbane Bears 1987-1996	2	1990, 1991
14	Collingwood 1897-	2	1976, 1999
15	West Coast Eagles 1987-	1	2010
15	Fremantle 1995-	1	2001
15	Brisbane Lions 1997-	1	1998
16	Adelaide 1991-	Nil
16	Port Adelaide 1997-	Nil

(*) See explanation of 1916 wooden spoon above.

Australian rugby league (NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL)

The Bulldogs finished last in 2002 because the NRL deducted 37 competition points for gross salary cap breaches; without the penalty, South Sydney would have received the wooden spoon.
The Melbourne Storm will finish last in 2010 because the NRL deducted 8 premiership points and barred them from receiving premiership points for the rest of the season for long-term gross salary-cap breaches.
Manly-Warringah have never won the wooden spoon since their inception in 1947; the closest they have come was in 2003 when they finished 14th. Since they will not win it this year, the Manly club's drought will extend to at least 64 years by the end of season 2010.
Of the other original clubs, Balmain had a longer wooden spoon drought (63 years), from 1911-74. St George had played 61 seasons without finishing last, and the joint venture between St George and Illawarra have had a further 11 seasons without a last placing.
The closest Wests Tigers came to winning the spoon was in 2002, when it finished 13th because of the Bulldogs' salary cap scandal (see above). Without the penalty, they would have finished 14th.
After a 2005 game between the St George Illawarra Dragons and the Newcastle Knights, Newcastle captain Andrew Johns was "presented" with the wooden spoon by an Oki Jubilee Stadium spectator. The following day Reg Reagan (a.k.a. Matthew Johns) presented him with the spoon on his way to a successful brief stint with the Warrington Wolves.
A picture in a The Daily Telegraph article in 2005 depicts then-Rabbitohs captain Ashley Harrison holding the spoon; the spoon was inserted thanks to some digital media magic.
Season 2009 saw the Sydney Roosters finish with the wooden spoon for the first time since 1966, when it failed to win a match all season. The Roosters won five games in 2009.

The tallies of wooden spoon winning teams at the top level of rugby league in Australia.

	Team	No.	SP	Years
1	Western Suburbs Magpies	17	92	1909, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1916, 1933, 1940, 1942, 1953, 1955, 1971, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, 1998, 1999
2	Parramatta Eels	11	63	1947, 1952, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1970, 1972
3	University	10	18	1921, 1923, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937
4	North Sydney Bears	9	92	1915, 1917, 1919, 1932, 1941, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1979
5	Newtown Jets	8	76	1924, 1925, 1928, 1939, 1968, 1976, 1977, 1978
6	South Sydney Rabbitohs	8	100	1945, 1946, 1962, 1975, 1990, 2003, 2004, 2006
7	Canterbury Bulldogs	5	75	1943, 1944, 1964, 2002*, 2008
8	Sydney Roosters	5	102	1949, 1963, 1965, 1966, 2009
8	Balmain Tigers	4	92	1911, 1974, 1981, 1994
8	Penrith Panthers	4	43	1973, 1980, 2001, 2007
12	Gold Coast Chargers	3	11	1991, 1992, 1993
12	Annandale	3	11	1914, 1918, 1920
12	North Queensland Cowboys	3	15	1995, 1997 (SL), 2000
12	Illawarra Steelers	3	17	1985, 1986, 1989
12	St. George Dragons	3	78	1922, 1926, 1938
17	South Queensland Crushers	2	3	1996, 1997
17	Cronulla Sharks	2	43	1967, 1969
19	Cumberland	1	1	1908
19	Melbourne Storm	1	12	2010*
19	Newcastle Knights	1	22	2005
19	Canberra Raiders	1	28	1982
23	Gold Coast Titans	0	3
24	Hunter Mariners	0	1
25	Adelaide Rams	0	2
26	Newcastle Rebels	0	2
27	Northern Eagles	0	3
28	Western Reds	0	3
29	Wests Tigers	0	10
30	St George Illawarra Dragons	0	11
31	New Zealand Warriors	0	15
32	Brisbane Broncos	0	22
33	Glebe	0	22
34	Manly Sea Eagles	0	60
SP denotes seasons played

The wooden spoon in British ice hockey

The wooden spoon has also become a tradition amongst the supporters of British ice hockey.

The tradition began in 1999 after a less than successful inaugural season for the London Knights, who had collected just ten wins and finished comfortably bottom of the Superleague. A group of London fans subsequently purchased a large wooden spoon in order to mark this fact which was proudly displayed amongst their supporters at the Play-Off Finals weekend in Manchester.

Twelve months later the spoon returned to the Finals weekend, when it was given to a supporter of the Newcastle Riverkings, who had won just eleven times in forty-two games and had finished bottom of the Superleague by sixteen points. The tradition was born, each year at the Finals weekend the spoon is presented by the previous recipient to a supporter of the club which finished bottom of the league. That supporter is then entrusted with its safe keeping for the following twelve months and must bring it to the following Finals weekend in order to pass it on to a fan of the next club to have the 'honour' of receiving the reward. The tradition continued after the Superleague disbanded and was replaced by the Elite Ice Hockey League in 2003.

The Wooden Spoon is almost entirely a tradition amongst fans, though in 2005, Basingstoke Bison head coach Mark Bernard accepted it on behalf of his team. The Spoon has had engraved onto it the name of each of its recipient clubs and remarkably has never been lost or misplaced and found its way back to the Finals weekend every year.

Rather ominously, only three of the eight recipient clubs so far continue to exist and only the two most recent 'winners' continue to play ice hockey in the country's highest league.

1998-99 - London Knights - The Knights won the play-off final the following season, but ceased operations in 2003 following the sale and closure of their London Arena home.
1999-00 - Newcastle Riverkings - The Riverkings franchise was sold and the new owners renamed the club the Jesters.
2000-01 - Newcastle Jesters - The Jester played only a single season. After the 2000-01 season, it was revealed that the club had large debts and were barred from signing players until these were settled. The club folded midway through the 2001-02 season having not been able to fulfil a single fixture.
2001-02 - Manchester Storm - Despite holding the attendance record for an ice hockey game in the United Kingdom at 17,245, falling crowds left the club unable to pay the costs of hiring their MEN Arena home. The club folded shortly after the 2002-03 season began.
2002-03 - Bracknell Bees - The Bees transferred into the British National League following the collapse of the Superleague, transferring again to the English Premier Ice Hockey League in 2005.
2003-04 - London Racers - Played for only two full seasons before ceasing operations in 2005 due to safety concerns surrounding their Lee Valley Ice Centre home.
2004-05 - Basingstoke Bison - Founder members of the EIHL, have struggled to compete with bigger clubs but are committed to remaining part of the EIHL.
2005-06 - Edinburgh Capitals - Transferred to the EIHL from the British National League following its collapse in 2005. The club had a difficult start to their first EIHL, picking up only a small number of wins. Despite an excellent second half of the season, the Capitals' early season form saw them finish bottom.

The Ready Steady Cook wooden spoon

The BBC's cookery gameshow Ready Steady Cook gives a decorated wooden spoon to its losing participants (there are two contestants on each show).

References

^ ^a ^b A Brace of Cantabs. (pseudonym) (1824). Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. J. Hearne.
^ Socius (1823). The Cambridge Tart. London: Smith. p. 98.
^ ^a ^b Stephen J. Cowley. "Cambridge Mathematical Tripos: Wooden Spoons". Retrieved 2009-07-27.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Jonathan Holmes (1998). "Queens' College Cambridge: 'A Queens' Wooden Spoon'". Retrieved 2009-07-27.
^ Socius (1823). The Cambridge Tart. London: Smith. p. 284.
^ ^a ^b "University of Cambridge Exhibitions: "In honours mathematical, the very last of all: Cambridge Wooden Spoons"". May 27, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
^ Godwin, Terry (1984). The International Rugby Championship 1883-1893. Willow Books. ISBN 000218060X.

External links

A photograph of the last wooden spoon to be awarded, now held at St John's College, Cambridge
Japanese Students at Cambridge University in the Meiji Era, 1868-1912: Pioneers for the Modernization of Japan [1] , by Noboru Koyama, translated by Ian Ruxton, (Lulu Press, September 2004, ISBN 1-4116-1256-6). This book contains detailed information regarding the Cambridge wooden spoon.

[Gradus-1] A Brace of Cantabs. (pseudonym) (1824). Gradus ad Cantabrigiam. J. Hearne.

[TartP98-2] Socius (1823). The Cambridge Tart. London: Smith. p. 98.

[Selwyn-3] Stephen J. Cowley. "Cambridge Mathematical Tripos: Wooden Spoons". Retrieved 2009-07-27.

[Queens-4] Jonathan Holmes (1998). "Queens' College Cambridge: 'A Queens' Wooden Spoon'". Retrieved 2009-07-27.

[TartP284-5] Socius (1823). The Cambridge Tart. London: Smith. p. 284.

[Cambridge-6] "University of Cambridge Exhibitions: "In honours mathematical, the very last of all: Cambridge Wooden Spoons"". May 27, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-27.

[7] Godwin, Terry (1984). The International Rugby Championship 1883-1893. Willow Books. ISBN 000218060X.

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