Table toppers

Quite what it is that gives solicitors such supple wrists is beyond Obiter's ken but we have been flooded by table football-related stories of late (well, we've had two, which counts as a flood for these purposes).

First there was Liverpool firm Mace & Jones's own tournament for clients (Gordon Clements and David Matthews of the co-sponsors Royal Bank of Scotland are pictured with Gary Jones and Ian Hodgkinson of Mace & Jones, above).

Tilney Investment Managers were the eventual winners.

But for Peter Andrews (right) and Matt Byrne, a partner and assistant respectively at regional firm Shoosmiths, the Catalyst Corporate Finance table football challenge trophy in Nottingham gave them a chance to strike a blow for their practice.

Shoosmiths is doing its best to convince the world that it is a national law firm (any chance of an office north of Nottingham then?) and at least showed it has the muscle to trounce the truly national Eversheds at table football, as Messrs Andrew and Byrne swept aside their rivals 10-3 and 10-2 in a best-of-three-games final.

Impressive though this feat was, we believe it's not enough to get that coveted national label quite yet.