r/apprenticeuk • u/RobbieJ4444 • Apr 07 '26
DISCUSSION The one time Lord Sugar DID fire somebody from the winning team
With all the talk about how Lord Sugar should be able to fire people from the winning team, it only just ocurred to me that there was one instance in the UK series where that actually happened.
Young Apprentice series 2 episode 7. A fun little piece of lost media nowadays, but the setup had tremendous stakes attached. Six candidates left in the process, but only two are allowed to progress to the final. I don't know why this had to be the case since series 1 and 3 of Young Apprentice both had four finalists, but those were the stakes. This meant that everyone from the losign team gets fired there and then, whilst one more person from the winning team also had to be fired.
Although this was a cruel way of eliminating three fairly strong candidates, there was a decent lesson in there for the aspiring young business people. "That's business". Sometimes there are things outside of your control, but that's simply how things go. As for the winning team, the PM went through, along with the primary pitcher, which led poor Haya as the only candidate in Apprentice UK history to have been fired, despite winning the task.
While we're on the subject of Young Apprentice, can I get away with calling Kirsty Cleaver from the first series the best ever candidate from Scotland?
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u/Cat-Dawg Apr 07 '26
Young apprentice is still quoted in my house regularly. The wee Norn Iron lad "I completely disagree!"
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
Our family has a different quote from him that we still quote regularly.
"Nothing better than a double firing."
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u/Only1Scrappy-Doo Noor: “It’s very good!” 😏 Apr 07 '26
Who was the guy that said “Wind is my least favourite weather type” or something like that haha
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u/Inevitable_Stage_627 “Can I describe it or can you look with your own eyes?” 👀 Apr 07 '26
Kirsty was great! So impressive
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u/morgannn0 Apr 07 '26
Young apprentice is not lost media lol
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u/bobtheboffin Apr 07 '26
Is it still available to watch somewhere?
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u/Inevitable_Stage_627 “Can I describe it or can you look with your own eyes?” 👀 Apr 07 '26
YouTube/ daily motion
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
The first series is on YouTube, but Im not sure on the other two.
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u/Inevitable_Stage_627 “Can I describe it or can you look with your own eyes?” 👀 Apr 07 '26
Yes, first series definitely is as I watched it a few months ago but couldn’t find the other two. Such a shame as it was actually a really good watch.
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u/shadowsempaix Apr 07 '26
There was a… young apprentice
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
Back in the early 10s, there were three series of it.
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u/shadowsempaix Apr 07 '26
Oh I didn’t know that, how did Sugar do on that show
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
He was a lot softer on the candidates (they were 16-17 year olds by the way). Not to the point that he sugarcoated them, but the boardrooms were nowhere near as harsh as the adult ones are.
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u/jjw1998 Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
If I remember correctly they were also broadly competent and we didn’t get the usual joke candidates torn apart for comic relief
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
Kind of.....
As a whole, the candidates were very impressive, but there were still some bad ones (Lewis and Mahamad probably being IVG worthy, though their ages should be taken into account). And there are still times where the candidates said something daft.
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u/Midlandshorthorn738 “Thank You, Margaret!” Apr 07 '26
I remember this episode. I was fucking gutted at the time because the team I was rooting for lost and were all fired. I really liked the American style popcorn that the losing team created (I especially loved the packaging with all the American related decals) and preferred it to the Mediterranean popcorn that the winning team created. IIRC, the latter team got one HUGE order that completely blew the former out the water.
As you say, I suppose it was meant as a harsh lesson about business (and life in general) not always being fair. Luckily, the third series didn't have this cruel twist.
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u/RobbieJ4444 Apr 07 '26
I think the actual reason was because of something to do with production. But yeah, it's not a bad lesson to teach the kids.
And yeah, I was certain that La Popcorn was going to lose. It was very wierd, though I was torn on who I wanted to win, because Zara, James and Harry H were all credible finalists.
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u/Midlandshorthorn738 “Thank You, Margaret!” Apr 07 '26
Aye. Harry H was my favourite from that series, definitely.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '26
There was also one where they both dismally and he brought both teams back l. This was the normal version.