Quiz master reflects on hours spent researching at Camperdown dairy farm

Brydon Coverdale will tell you his love of trivia was the result of his competitive nature.

"I'm often asked what got me so interested in trivia," Mr Coverdale said.

"The glib answer is that, as the youngest of four children, I was always trying to prove that I was just as good as my older siblings whenever we played Trivial Pursuit. There is some truth to that, but the real explanation is that I have always been intensely competitive at games and sports and deeply curious about the world around me."

Mr Coverdale, 40, grew up on the family's dairy farm with his parents David and Valerie and older siblings Lindy, Judy and Chris. Back in those days he never dreamed he would land a role as a chaser on Channel 7 quiz show The Chase.

Mr Coverdale, who has three children - Heidi, 6, Fletcher, 5, and Avery, 2, with wife Zoe, has just released his first book The Quiz Masters. "Australians have always loved trivia and quiz shows but I had never seen a book that explored that," Mr Coverdale said.

There's something really addictive about watching a quiz show and playing along at home. But also, I knew there would be some wonderfully fascinating stories waiting to be uncovered. "I interviewed Martin Flood, who trained for five years to win the million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - and then did actually win it.

"I met the great Sale of the Century champ of the '80s, Cary Young, and sat in his house, which is still full of Sale prizes nearly 40 years later. Then there's a chapter on pub trivia, one on the World Quizzing Championships, one on the ABC Radio's cult midnight quiz, one on Trivial Pursuit."

Mr Coverdale said he had decided to allow the quiz lovers to "play along at home" when reading his book.

"Throughout the book I often refer to trivia questions but I don't give the answers in the main text so that readers can play along and try to answer the questions as they go, then they can check the footnotes to see if they're right. I think that adds a fun extra dimension to it," he said.

In his book, Mr Coverdale recalls hours spent listening to Tony Delroy's The Challenge on ABC Radio. "It's well after midnight and the house is dead quiet," Mr Coverdale said.

"I'm the only one still awake. A long telephone extension cord runs from the hall of our farm homestead, all the way to my bedroom, under the door and into the privacy of my own personal space, an important fortress of solitude for any 15-year-old boy."

Mr Coverdale was reminiscing about waiting on the line to have his chance at competing in the late-night radio quiz. "And then, I hear the click," he said.

"The volume has increased and so has my adrenaline. Oh god, it's happening. It's actually happening. And a familiar, mellifluous voice is now talking directly to me: 'Brydon from Camperdown, you're next ...'"

Mr Coverdale, who appeared on a number of quiz and game shows as contestant and won $300,000 on Million Dollar Minute speaks about landing his dream job on The Chaser in his book. But he also speaks about his first job - which was not quite the dream role.

"I have never felt as ill equipped for anything as when I started my first journalism job out of university, reporting for the agricultural newspaper Stock and Land," he said.

Mr Coverdale told The Standard there were certain parts of the job he loved, but he also found it very stressful.

"I grew up on a dairy farm but was never very hands-on and I didn't have a great interest in farming," he said.

"I always loved to get out and see the different parts of Victoria and meet the farmers and have a chat, and I enjoyed putting the stories together. But I honestly didn't have a clue what I was doing - I was so far out of my depth it wasn't funny."

However, Mr Coverdale did land a journalism gig that he thoroughly loved.

He spent 11 years as a cricket journalist for ESPNcricinfo, the world's leading cricket website. "Not for a moment do I forget how fortunate I was to land my dream job as a cricket reporter," Mr Coverdale said. "Within a month of starting at Cricinfo, I was playing beach cricket in Goa with Greg Chappell, who was a guest at a Cricinfo editorial conference. "I once answered my phone to hear, in that iconic voice, 'Hello Brydon, it's Richie Benaud here. Cricket tours allowed me to see some of the world's most incredible sights: the Taj Mahal, Cape Town's Table Mountain, the Red Fort in Delhi."

Mr Coverdale remembers receiving a call while covering a cricket match at Hobart's Bellerive Oval from a producer from the Australian arm of ITV Studios who was gauging his interest in a new quiz show the company was making for a major television network. "That was all the information I was given, but it was all I needed," Mr Coverdale said.

"I had watched enough of the UK version of The Chase to know it was produced by ITV, and I knew that in 2014, soon after my Million Dollar Minute success, a casting call had been put out for a possible Australian version of The Chase.

"I had applied to be on the show and inserted a cheeky suggestion that I be considered as a chaser. The name of the show was not mentioned but it had to be The Chase - but was I being considered as a contestant or chaser?"

Mr Coverdale said it was hard to concentrate on his task at hand - covering the World Cup cricket match between Ireland and Zimbabwe - that day. He said the audition was intimidating.

"It felt surreal for a mild-mannered reporter to sit there pretending to be a superman, but I took comfort in the fact that I would remember the audition for the rest of my life even if I didn't get the job."

Mr Coverdale said he could hardly believe it when he landed the gig.

He has developed close relationships with his fellow chasers and show host Larry Emdur.

"We all get on really well, it's just a shame that we're rarely all together at the same time. Issa, the Supernerd, is exactly as he appears on TV. He's just the most friendly, polite person - he's become a really close friend. Matt and Cheryl are wonderful as well, I'm frequently in touch with all the chasers actually."

Mr Coverale said Mr Emdur was "such a wonderful human being".

Mr Coverdale's filming schedule allows him to help out around the home most days.

"When I'm filming The Chase I'll fly to Sydney for a few days at a time - the show used to be filmed in Melbourne but now it's in Sydney. But those filming blocks are few and far between, so I actually get to spend a lot of time at home, which means making school and kinder lunches, doing drop-offs and pick-ups, and all that stuff that every parent knows all too well."

The Quiz Masters was published by Allen and Unwin and is available at Collins Booksellers. Mr Coverdale will be at the Warrnambool Library to talk about his book on Thursday, June 23 at 6.30pm. Tickets are available through the library and Collins Booksellers.

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