Loaded's World Cup Canon: From Crisps to Vodka and erm, a selection of more questionable items
The 1995 Lager'lympics was not a one-off. It was one entry in a recurring Loaded magazine format whose peak period ran in fifteen months, from the inaugural Crisp World Cup in September 1994 through to the Vodka World Cup in December 1995 — five editions in fifteen months, defining the format at the height of Loaded's early-period reputation.
The canon then continues through Toast, Ice Lolly, Booze, Stockings, Art, Sex Toy and Meat, finally winding up in January 2001 with The League of Gentlemen's Hilary Briss presiding over the slaughter table. This page is the canonical index across all twelve known editions, with bylines, winners, and the through-lines — Phil Robinson as the franchise writer from December 1995 onwards, Antony Medley as the late-canon franchise photographer, Rowan Chernin on the lurid-sensory editions, the Pope-call recurring as the format's authority device, and a sick-bin gag that survives from the Vodka WC into the Booze WC three years later.
| Edition | Issue | Story | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crisp WC | Loaded #5 · Sep 1994 | Adam Levi · panel: James Brown, Tim Southwell, Martin Deeson, Adam Levi, Filthy Clarke | McCoys Chilli (final v Walkers Cream Cheese & Chives) |
| Washing Powder WC | Loaded #8 · Dec 1994 ("Scorchio") | James Brown · ph. Chris Floyd & Damian Smyth | Down To Earth (the biodegradable "dolphins" brand) |
| Lager'lympics | What's For Tea Love? supplement · #12 · Apr 1995 | uncredited panel | Budvar |
| Cereals WC | Loaded #19 · Nov 1995 ("Wicked Willie") | "The Loafer" · panel: James, Les, Mike, Phil, the Loafer | Ricicles (3–2 show-of-hands over Crunchy Nut Cornflakes) |
| Vodka WC | Loaded #20 · Dec 1995 (Suggs cover) | Phil Robinson | Stoli Cristall (decided by piece-of-paper verdict) |
| Toast Olympics | Loaded #34 · Feb 1997 (Jack Dee cover) | Phil Robinson | Pain de Campagne ("The Emperor"); silver White Crusty Bloomer, bronze Soft Granary Malted |
| Ice Lolly WC | Aug 1997 | Rowan Chernin | Calippo (Bounty 2nd, Twister 3rd) |
| Booze WC | #51 · Jul 1998 | Phil Robinson · ph. Antony Medley | Beefeater Gin (England) |
| Stockings WC | #72 · Apr 2000 | Rowan Chernin · ph. Stephen Perry | Wolford |
| Art WC | #74 · Jun 2000 | Johnny Cigarettes · ph. Antony Medley · hosted by Tony Hart | Klimt — The Three Ages of Woman |
| Sex Toy WC | #79 · Nov 2000 | Will Storr · ph. Alan McFadden & Mark Kinge | Vibrating Panty (£65 remote-controlled knickers; final v Jessica) |
| Meat WC | #81 · Jan 2001 | Chris Burke · ph. Antony Medley · presided by Mark Gatiss as Hilary Briss | T-Bone Steak (all-cow final v Roast Beef) |
The chronology above is confirmed by an internal reference in the Vodka WC splash (December 1995): "Smells like clear spirit… We've done beer, crisps, washing powder and cereals…"
The origin: Crisps, September 1994
The format started in Loaded Issue 5, September 1994. The source page is captioned "snack of the day" with the subhead "Britain may have invented football but we also created the crisp. And now... the Crisp World Cup." The piece carries an Adam Levi byline; the panel is named in the body copy:
"The panel of armchair experts: James Brown, Tim Southwell, Martin Deeson, Adam Levi and Filthy Clarke."— Crisp World Cup, Loaded #5, September 1994
The set-up the magazine prints is unembellished. After a row in the office about whether Kettle Chips beat Walkers — "They're a quality crisp" / "F*ck off, that's what they gave people in the '40s instead of crisps. They're sh*t." — loaded decides to settle it in front of a panel. 64 crisps go into a knockout bracket. The page is built around a single scoring grid with six categories: strip / realism of flavour / sandwich compatibility / crunchability / dinner substitute / feelgood factor.
By the last eight the captions are tracking the panel's deterioration: "Is there any tomato? No, the Italians didn't qualify" (first round) → "Look this is serious. We have to do it in private now" (second round) → "Reminds me of Babe Ruth / Beirut more like" (third round) → "Take these Smiths away, they're absolute a*se" (last eight). Walkers Cheese & Chives leads the last-eight scoring at 180; McCoys Chilli runs it close at 179.
The semi-finals pit Walkers Cream Cheese & Chives v Walkers Beef & Onion, and Pringles Lights v McCoys Chilli. The semi caption is the giveaway: "We're at the semi finals and we're faking it? No way." The final is McCoys Chilli v Walkers Cream Cheese & Chives.
"No one can eat another crisp so we line up a panel of external adjudicators: The Vatican, The White House and Quentin Crisp to decide..."— Crisp World Cup final caption, Loaded #5, September 1994
McCoys Chilli wins it. The final-page splash reads simply: "McCoys win it!!!"
The story is also recounted — with embellishments — in James Brown's memoir Animal House. Brown's version expands the Vatican line into a full anecdote ("an Irish priest there who answered… 'I think His Holiness is a Pringles man'") and finishes with a cab-fare-to-airport tie-breaker not present in the source page. The page itself just names the three adjudicators and crowns McCoys. Brown's memoir is the better quote source; the page is the canonical record. Brown is also explicit, in Animal House, that this run was the format's seed:
"The format became a loaded staple, then a magazine staple, and then twenty-five years on in the age of social media, TV host Richard Osman started using it on Twitter as if no one had ever done it before."— James Brown, Animal House
At least ten further editions follow in our canon below; more in the archive yet to be transcribed.
The canon, in chronological order
The Crisp World Cup
Read the bracket
The format's first run. 64 crisps in a knockout bracket, scored across six categories (strip / realism of flavour / sandwich compatibility / crunchability / dinner substitute / feelgood factor). Round captions track the panel's slide: "Is there any tomato? No, the Italians didn't qualify" → "Reminds me of Babe Ruth / Beirut more like" → "Take these Smiths away, they're absolute a*se". The semi-finals are Walkers Cream Cheese & Chives v Walkers Beef & Onion, and Pringles Lights v McCoys Chilli. The final is decided by an external adjudication panel of The Vatican, The White House and Quentin Crisp.
The Washing Powder World Cup
Read the bracket
The format's first stunt-discipline edition (and the first one the editor himself wrote up). The whole staff dons white vests and brand-new Levi 501s and proceeds to dirty them maximally: "Puddle jumping, mud fights, orienteering, and football in white vests and brand new Levi 501s. All in the name of research." Diving header competitions, playground ice-slides into troughs of mouldy leaves, mud-pie fights in horse tracks. Olympic gold-medallist swimmer Adrian Moorhouse drives past as the team change at the end of his road and swerves his car in shock. Once the whites are sufficiently destroyed they're driven back to the assistant editor's house for stage two: the food stains — ketchup, Lea & Perrins, chilli sauce, red wine, ashtray contents, several prawn dansaks and chicken tikka masalas. Then the launderette: eight finalists chosen from fifteen brands (after eliminating Domestos, Colgate toothpaste, dishwasher powder, Fairy Liquid washing powder ("I thought they only did washing-up liquid?") and the Safeway own-brand for being design-undercut by Tesco). Final lineup: Happy Shopper, Radion, Surf, Daz, Tesco, Persil, Ariel, and the wild card Down To Earth (£4.29/2kg, "dolphins on bag, obviously for environmentally friendly yuppies"). Two-axis scoring — Woodland Caper out of ten, Food & Wine Cocktail out of ten. Persil collapses ("Shocking middle-order collapse from market heavyweight"); Ariel underperforms on the curry stain.
"The bloody dolphins scooped it!! And the upshot is? Just don't bother washing your clothes."— James Brown, Washing Powder World Cup, Loaded #8, December 1994
The Lager'lympics
→ Full bracket, scoring tables and provenance
Read the bracket
62 lagers (framed in the editorial as 64 — Loaded kept the founding magic number even when the field was thin). Six rounds, drunk-panel adjudication, scoring across design / taste / drunk. Final 178–98. Documented in full on our dedicated reference page; this is the one the magazine's own archive doesn't carry.
The Cereals World Cup
Read the bracket
Origin story: Jim in the office one quiet day says "breakfasts have never been the same since they stopped doing Golden Nuggets"; before he can finish the sentence the others have committed him to a tournament. 35 cereals bought at Sainsbury's Whitechapel (the receipt is reproduced on the page: total £52.30 cash) and whittled to a straight 32 for the first round — though they had to send someone out to buy Corn Flakes because "we forgot to buy bloody Corn Flakes". The format pivots into proper scoring categories from the last eight onwards: image, second helping, taste, good start to the day, appearance, odour, texture. Final: Ricicles v Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. The point totals are too close to call — Ricicles 125, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes 122 — so it goes to a show-of-hands. The piece names the Crisp World Cup precedent explicitly for the recurring authority-figure gag:
"We think about phoning The Pope again like we did for the Crisp World Cup, but he won't know. It'll be decided on a show of hands."— The Loafer, Cereals World Cup, Loaded #19, November 1995
Ricicles takes it 3–2.
The Vodka World Cup
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33 vodkas in a knockout. The conceit is that James Brown the editor — "James the Editor", who is presiding — visibly morphs into Captain Mainwaring as the night progresses, surrounded by twelve "gattered Private Pykes" (the office). Later in the night he morphs again, this time into Gordon of Khartoum facing the native hordes. The conceit is Phil Robinson's writerly device, not a costumed bit. (Arthur Lowe had been dead since 1982 in any case.) Cast also includes "Stringfellow's Mark" joining the team mid-event, a cleaner-judge corps recruited from the office cleaners, and a guest cameo from a bowl of Stringfellow's vodka jelly entered as a novelty contestant. The "Ein Berliner" sick-bin makes its first appearance; it returns three years later in the Booze WC. Tanqueray Sterling (a vodka, despite the name) reaches the final stages before the throw-up rule is invented to break the deadlock — "We'll sit here and pass the bottle round until someone throws up. And whoever throws up, whatever they're drinking gets booted out and we've got a winner." The verdict ultimately comes from a more reliable source: "Stoli Cristall won because some bloke wrote it down on a piece of paper. Bright spark."
"The loaded Dad's Army Vodka World Cup. That's a lot of vodka. And I'll tell you one thing for nothing, the Russians can have it back. One. Two. Three. Altogether now: 'Who do you think you are kidding Mr Yeltsin if you think old Innngluuunds duuuuuunnnnnnya...'"— Phil Robinson, Vodka World Cup, Loaded #20, December 1995
The 1997 Toast Olympics
Read the bracket
34 loaves from the supermarkets — "money", gingerbread men, and bagels disqualified for not properly being toast — whittled to twelve for the bracket proper. Categories rotate as the rounds progress: round one is butter-take and taste; the quarter-finals add "compatibility with a winter's evening" and "bloat-you-up-ability"; the semi-finals add the smell-of-bread-against-the-face test and (genuinely) "resistance to an average golf swing" as a measure of robustness. The Traditional Wholemeal, the semis report, could "knock a dog unconscious" with a hard enough hit. Robinson's signature Mainwaring conceit reappears — "James the editor once again assumes a Captain Mainwaring role in the proceedings and orders the rabble back so a more empirical tasting can begin." Final three: Pain de Campagne v White Crusty Loaf v Soft Granary Malted.
"It's crisp, holds the butter like a fine crumpet, but without collapsing. It also has a sublime nutty crust you can rip off with your teeth, plus a dough so succulent and fragrant a little mouse princess could sleep in it. An Emperor among toast. The winner!"— Phil Robinson, Toast Olympics, Loaded #34, February 1997
The Ice Lolly World Cup
Read the bracket
By the second round the panel has lost the plot. Magnums "get scared and melt into streaky goo". The Mr Men refuse to leave their wrappers. Jason, the Irish production editor, takes an elastic band to the glasses and drops his Solero. Derek — the other office Irish bloke — declares the Bubble Gum Showtime "deliberately tastes of gonorrhoea". An open-window elastic-band war breaks out; Jon "Missing" Link, art editor, picks up a chair and smashes it through a closed window. "It's a lethal cocktail," shouts Mick, swinging a plastic bin. Krispy Ice is disqualified outright as the worst thing the panel has ever tasted.
The Booze World Cup
Read the bracket
Spirits-only knockout; the sick-bin is back, this time labelled "WORLD CUP SICK BIN — EIN BERLINER", the same gag from the Vodka WC four years earlier. The round names map the panel's physical decline: "You can't drink that much, you'll be sick" → "Let's get this finished" → "Everything is horrible, nothing is nice" → "I went to the toilet and I couldn't p*ss" → "My teeth itch — I'm going home". Iran, Morocco, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia are out at the first hurdle because "you can't run the Booze World Cup if you only drink Vimto" [sic]. The final pits Linie Aquavit against Beefeater London Distilled Dry Gin; both are declared to "taste like w*nk". The verdict comes by exhaustion, not preference.
"We wanted David Niven in a bottle, what we've got is David Icke."— Booze World Cup, Loaded #51 · July 1998
The Stockings World Cup
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Modelled openly on the antecedent: "First they invented sliced bread, then man walked on the moon, and then came the Bra World Cup. Then nothing else happened for a couple of months. And now … the Stockings World Cup." Knockout across 32 brands worn by models, judged in person. Wolford takes Sensuous in the final — the magazine catches the brand's design heritage neatly: "Stockings were originally a woman-covering device designed around the time of the Great Plague to keep the rickets free of fleas."
The Art World Cup
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32 paintings, run as a knockout. The intro sets the production design exactly right: "Take 32 paintings, one art telly genius, a bunch of ignorant loaded berks and a big box full of cravats." Tony Hart — aged 75, decades into national-treasure status — is pictured holding the eventual winner. A "Charity Shop Dog Painting" wildcard reaches the quarter-finals before being beaten by Toulouse-Lautrec. The final pits Klimt against Degas. Klimt's The Three Ages of Woman (1905) is declared "now officially the best painting in the whole world".
"Picasso hasn't captured angst. He's just captured a woman with a filling biting into an ice lolly."— Mick, Loaded panel, Art WC
The Sex Toy World Cup
Read the bracket
32 contraptions, £1,628.24 of merchandise gathered from Harmony Sex Shop and passiononline.co.uk, bracketed in a Soho-style knockout. Entrants include the Letha Weapons doll (£439), John Holmes Realistic C*ck, Spank Paddle, Hustler Dual Vibrator, Chasey Lain Cyberskin, Rotating Laser C*ck ("Princess Leia's dream weapon", £94.55), Five Gates of Hell c*ck-strap, the Honey Bee strap-on with its "Stinger" pipe, the Double Header ("two-eyed trouser snake"), and the Parachute Ball Stretcher ("Soft landings for small b*llocks"). Mock-serious matchup captions: "Are we allowed to touch the poodles?" · "The Spread Eagle becomes roadkill" · "Big skin-sock swallows Polly" · "Revenge of the killer snake". Semi-finals: Jessica v Honey Bee (Jessie stings the Bee) and Vibrating Panty v Double Header (the bi-bonced f*ck monster doesn't get it). Final: Jessica v Vibrating Panty. Vibrating Panty wins on novelty, versatility and "labour-saving" appeal, with a pub-table scene as the verdict copy — girlfriend at the bar wearing the remote-controlled knickers, fella at the table with the remote, ordering Stellas under increasingly compromised circumstances.
"'Err...I... errrr... oof, Jesus... ahhhhhhh... Stellaaaaaaaah...'"— Will Storr, Sex Toy World Cup, Loaded #79, November 2000
The Meat World Cup
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18 cuts staged at a long table "like the disciples from the Last Supper", with a raised pig's head pride of place. The framing is creationist butchery: "It all started, as many things did, in the Garden of Eden. 'Not apple again,' complained Adam to his other half. 'Sod that, I want my rib back.'" The rules: no poultry ("p*ofs' meat") and no offal, though external bits qualify as fair game and endangered species are encouraged. Notable round-one matchups: Pigs' Tails v Mutton (mutton wins); Veal v Lamb Chops ("they strangle little baby cows and fill them full of Tippex then put them in a cardboard box," explains Hilary); Boiled Ham v Ox Tongue ("It's been in someone's mouth"); Wild Boar v Rabbit ("Rabbit's like bland turkey," then the table descends into turkey-w*nking discourse); Venison v Ostrich; Crocodile v Kangaroo; and Bacon v Hilary Briss's own "Special Stuff" — the nosebleed-inducing Royston Vasey product, source unknown. Bacon wins it. The quarter-finals deliver a three-way Venison / Bacon / Kangaroo decided by Hilary's casting line "Bacon makes children smile". Semi-finals: Beef beats Hilary's beloved Ham; T-Bone beats Bacon. All-cow final: T-Bone v Roast Beef. T-Bone takes it.
"Take note, Frenchmen — from now on, we English shall no longer be known as Les Rostbifs, we wish to be called Les T-Bones."— Chris Burke, Meat World Cup, Loaded #81, January 2001
← swipe through all twelve editions →
The through-lines
Reading the canon end-to-end — rather than as discrete novelty pieces — reveals a small set of recurring elements that hold across nearly seven years and at least four different writers.
Antony Medley is the franchise photographer
Medley's byline appears on the Art WC, the Booze WC, and the Meat WC at minimum — three editions stretched across two and a half years. The visual register is consistent: judges photographed mid-decline, an over-laden table, a single hero shot of the winning object. He is to the Loaded World Cup what John Belushi was to Animal House: not the writer but the through-line.
Phil Robinson is the franchise writer
Robinson's earliest known World Cup byline is the Vodka WC in December 1995; he writes the Toast Olympics in February 1997 and the Booze WC in July 1998. Three confirmed editions across two and a half years. His signature device is to cast James Brown the editor as Captain Mainwaring — the Vodka WC has Brown morphing into Mainwaring as the night progresses (then again into Gordon of Khartoum); the Toast Olympics has "James the editor once again assumes a Captain Mainwaring role in the proceedings and orders the rabble back so a more empirical tasting can begin". The Sick Bin gag and the round-names-as-judges'-decline structure are Robinson's other signatures.
Rowan Chernin handles the lurid-sensory editions
Chernin gets the editions that are designed to break the panel physically rather than authoritatively — Ice Lolly WC in 1997 (chair through a window, Slush Puppy shrapnel) and Stockings WC in 2000 (jurists pinged with hold-ups during deliberation). Robinson does the format's chain-of-command; Chernin does the format's sensory collapse.
The Sick Bin gag recurs
The "Ein Berliner" sick-bin first appears in the Vodka WC (December 1995) and shows up again, with the same Kennedy-mangling label, in the Booze WC (July 1998) two and a half years later. It is the closest the format has to a recurring prop — a deliberate self-citation across editions for readers paying attention. Both editions are Phil Robinson's, which is presumably why.
The Pope gets phoned
The Crisp WC final names The Vatican, The White House and Quentin Crisp as external adjudicators. The Cereals WC fourteen months later names the precedent explicitly: "We think about phoning The Pope again like we did for the Crisp World Cup." That confirms the Vatican is the format's recurring authority device — not a Crisp WC one-off — even though only the Crisp WC actually goes through with the call. James Brown's later memoir Animal House retroactively makes the Pope phone-call into a fully-developed anecdote (Irish priest, "I think His Holiness is a Pringles man"). The actual page is more clipped; the gag matters more than the call.
Celebrity hosts arrive later
The format gravitates toward high-low casting once it has been running for a few years. Tony Hart hosts the Art WC in 2000. Mark Gatiss presides over the Meat WC in 2001 in character as Hilary Briss. The early editions rely on internal personae instead — in the Vodka WC, James Brown himself is conscripted into the role of Captain Mainwaring (then Gordon of Khartoum) by Robinson's writerly device. The cleaning-staff are inducted as a "judges corps" mid-event. The hosts of the later editions are not Loaded's own; they are imported and bent to the format's purposes.
Format-by-derangement is the format
The verdict mechanism is rarely the published scoring system. Crisps was decided by airport cab fare. Vodka had a finalist installed by mis-pouring. Booze was conceded by exhaustion. Ice Lolly involved a chair through a window. The bracket is the alibi; the chaos is the content.
Why this matters
The format is now most visible in its descendants — quote-tweet bracket polls on Twitter, "Best Crisps" polls on TV panel shows, the entire Richard Osman corner of British media. Brown's memoir is direct on this: "twenty-five years on in the age of social media, TV host Richard Osman started using it on Twitter as if no one had ever done it before." That lineage gets repeatedly attributed sideways or forwards; this page is a record of where it actually started.
It also gives the Lager'lympics its proper editorial position. The 1995 Lager World Cup wasn't an isolated stunt that happened to crown Budvar; it was the second edition of a format the magazine already trusted, and it inherits the founding number (64 lagers framed even though the field was actually 62) directly from the Crisps WC the year before. Loaded kept the magic number even when the entrants thinned.
FAQ
How many World Cup editions did Loaded run?
At least twelve that we can name — all twelve confirmed from primary scans (Crisp, Washing Powder, Lager'lympics, Cereals, Vodka, Toast, Ice Lolly, Booze, Stockings, Art, Sex Toy, Meat). Several further editions are referenced in passing — Computer Games WC, Cricket WC, Bra WC — plus the Issue 100 "World Cup of World Cups" retrospective in 2003.
Which was the first?
The Crisp World Cup, in Loaded Issue 5 (September 1994). The page carries an Adam Levi byline and names the panel: James Brown, Tim Southwell, Martin Deeson, Adam Levi, Filthy Clarke. It started as a way to settle whether Kettle Chips were really better than Walkers — a claim that publisher Alan Lewis was making in the office, retold afterwards in editor James Brown's memoir Animal House.
Who won the Crisp World Cup?
McCoys Chilli, beating Walkers Cream Cheese & Chives in the final. By the late rounds the panel could no longer judge the crisps themselves, so — per the magazine's own final-page splash — they brought in external adjudicators: "The Vatican, The White House and Quentin Crisp." The final-page splash reads simply: "McCoys win it!!!" (James Brown's later memoir Animal House expands the Vatican line into a phone-call anecdote and adds a cab-fare tie-break not present in the source page; the page itself is more clipped.)
Who hosted the Art World Cup?
Tony Hart, presenter of Hart Beat and Take Hart. He was 75 at the time of the Loaded Art World Cup (Issue 74, June 2000) and is pictured in the feature holding the eventual winner, Klimt's The Three Ages of Woman. Story by Johnny Cigarettes; photos by Antony Medley.
Who hosted the Meat World Cup?
Mark Gatiss, in character as Hilary Briss, the sinister ginger butcher from The League of Gentlemen. He brought "some of The Special Stuff" from his Royston Vasey meat lockers to the table. The feature ran in Loaded #81 (January 2001), written by Chris Burke with photos by Antony Medley.
What is the "Ein Berliner" sick bin?
A bin used by the Loaded panel to throw up into during tasting features, labelled with the Kennedy-mangling "WORLD CUP SICK BIN — EIN BERLINER" in marker pen. It appears in both the Vodka World Cup (early Loaded) and the Booze World Cup (Issue 51, July 1998), four years apart — the closest the format has to a recurring prop.
PINtPOINT's modern descendant: Beer World Cup XI — an editorial tournament across the World Cup 2026 window, loosely inspired by the Lager'lympics format. 48 nations, real fixtures, Pub VAR rulings.
Sources
- Loaded Issue 5, September 1994, pp. 11–13 — "snack of the day — the Crisp World Cup", byline Adam Levi; panel named in body: James Brown, Tim Southwell, Martin Deeson, Adam Levi, Filthy Clarke. Final-page splash crowns McCoys Chilli; external adjudicators named as The Vatican, The White House, Quentin Crisp.
- Loaded Issue 8, December 1994 ("Scorchio" cover), pp. 28–31 — "Washing Powder World Cup", story by James Brown, photos by Chris Floyd and Damian Smyth. Eight detergents tested in launderette after the staff dirty their own white vests and Levi 501s through mud-fights / horse-track diving / curry-and-claret dousing. Down To Earth wins 14/20.
- What's For Tea Love? — Loaded magazine food and drink supplement, given away with Issue 12 (April 1995); contains the Lager'lympics on pages 4–6. Full transcription and provenance here.
- Loaded Issue 19, November 1995 ("Wicked Willie" cover), pp. 44–47 — "THE BREAKFAST OF power — Cereals World Cup", byline "The Loafer"; panel James, Les, Mike, Phil, The Loafer. 35 cereals from a Sainsbury's Whitechapel shop (receipt reproduced; total £52.30). Ricicles wins the final 3–2 on a show of hands after a 125–122 scoring deadlock with Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. The Pope-call gag is named back to the Crisp WC.
- Loaded Issue 20, December 1995 (Suggs cover), pp. 23–25 — "Vodka W*r — the Vodka World Cup", story by Phil Robinson. Stoli Cristall declared winner via a piece-of-paper verdict after the throw-up rule failed.
- James Brown, Animal House (memoir). Brown's first-person account of founding and editing Loaded; the Crisp World Cup chapter retells the format's origin with embellishments (extended Vatican phone-call anecdote, cab-fare tie-breaker) that don't appear in the source page. Useful for the publisher Alan Lewis pre-history.
- Loaded Issue 34, February 1997 (Jack Dee cover), pp. 51–54 — "1997 Toast Olympics", story by Phil Robinson. 12-loaf bracket; Pain de Campagne crowned The Emperor.
- Loaded Ice Lolly World Cup, August 1997, pp. 44–45 — story by Rowan Chernin.
- Loaded Issue 51, July 1998, pp. 102–103 — "Booze World Cup", story by Phil Robinson, photos by Antony Medley.
- Loaded Issue 72, April 2000, pp. 64–71 (approx.) — "Stockings World Cup", story by Rowan Chernin, photos by Stephen Perry.
- Loaded Issue 74, June 2000, pp. 68–72 (approx.) — "Art World Cup, hosted by Tony Hart", story by Johnny Cigarettes, photos by Antony Medley.
- Loaded Issue 79, November 2000 (Hollyoaks cover), pp. 135–138 — "The Sex Toy World Cup", story by Will Storr, photos by Alan McFadden & Mark Kinge. 32-item bracket; final Jessica v Vibrating Panty; Vibrating Panty wins.
- Loaded Issue 81, January 2001, pp. 92–97 — "The Meat World Cup", story by Chris Burke, photos by Antony Medley; Mark Gatiss in character as Hilary Briss presides; cooking by Gary at Christopher's London. 18-cut bracket; all-cow final T-Bone v Roast Beef; T-Bone wins.
- Wikipedia: Loaded (magazine); James Brown (editor); Tony Hart; Mark Gatiss; The League of Gentlemen.