Noel appeared on Channel 4's "Countdown" in 1993, winning 4 of his 5 appearances in the opening section, and going on to lose - on the conundrum - to future Champion of Champions, Don Reid, in the semi-final. After all his many appearances, Don described his match with Noel as his closest. He was horrified, later, to discover that Noel had a "system", based around his Scrabble word-learning. It had never even occurred to Don that one could have a system for "Countdown"!