Team Nemesis

Team Nemesis was a well known Irish team from the first five series of Robot Wars, also competing in both series of Extreme. The team was recognised for being one of the favourites among the audience.

The Team
The team mainly comprised of Peter Redmond, the team captain and driver, Joe Gavin, the radio man, and Cairon "Dr. Zulu" Byrne, the man behind the chassis construction and armour. William Murphy and John Cunnane were also members during the team's time in the first two series. Craig Charles's son Jack also joined Team Nemesis on several occasions.

"A friend of mine, Zulu, who was also on the Diotoir team, he'd been in the US and he saw Robot Wars in the US and he said "Oh you have to see this thing, it's amazing! They have these robots with weapons on them and they bash each other up and it's really cool!" ... I did an online search and I found out that BBC had bought the rights for Robot Wars in the UK, and they were going to start building and they were looking for entries, so I said "Ok, we could do that, let's start building a robot!""

- Peter Redmond on entering Robot Wars

The team fought with two similar-looking robots. Nemesis was the team's original robot, one of the first robots to debut in Robot Wars. Nemesis never failed to reach the Arena stage of its Heats, scoring the best run of the Gauntlet and being the first to defeat a House Robot in the Trial of its very first heat. However, it failed to win a battle in the Arena stage.

Diotoir, Son of Nemesis, followed the retirement of Nemesis. Diotoir became a famed face also, with much more success than Nemesis - holding two heat finals, the final of the Celebrity Special, and a Tag Team Terror title to its name, in addition to its famous underdog victory over Tornado. It also represented the Republic of Ireland in two World Championships, reaching the Semi-Finals of the first.

During the Third Wars, Team Nemesis handed Nemesis (on loan) to the Terror Australis team during the International League Championship, after the Australians' machine broke down before fighting. Nemesis held on to a draw with Depoppesaurus Rex, but then coincidentally lost to Diotoir. The robot then also lost to Mortis in the battle of the Ashes, during the same program.

Team Nemesis fought in five wars - the most that a foreign robot has ever fought in. Despite competing in a large amount of fights, they only ever won precisely half of their battles, however, despite being seen as the underdogs in almost all battles that it took part in, the team reached two heat finals and only failed to reach the heat semi-final once.

For the Celebrity Special shown as part of the Christmas specials in December 2000, the team were joined by comedian Vic Reeves. As per the rules, he had to control the machine for sixty seconds before he was permitted to hand the controls over to the roboteers. As with the other celebrities, he decorated the machine, adding a frying pan to the flipper and a large pair of fake glasses.

Team Nemesis did not return for the Seventh Wars. As Robot Wars switched to Channel 5, which was not shown in Ireland, the team lost their sponsorship and were unable to travel to the UK for filming or the qualifiers.

In 2016, Team Nemesis were asked by a Facebook user whether they would compete in the 2016 reboot of Robot Wars or not. Team Nemesis replied with "Maybe", which suggests they may be considering entering the series. However, the team were not selected to take part.

Trademarks
Famously, Nemesis or Diotoir were set alight in every series. The result of this was Diotoir's trademark fur - red with black polkadots. This fur clad every single incarnation of Diotoir and Nemesis, and was highly flammable. After two losses and being set alight, Nemesis was invited to join the Inferno Insurrection, during which it and a robot named Ramrombit were soaked in parrafin and entered the battle against Sergeant Bash with the purpose of being set alight for the audience's entertainment.

"When we first built Nemesis and it was moving around on the floor, we said "That's really cool!" because it was round and looked like a little animal on the ground. We said "That's cool, we'll have to cover it with something" or paint it up or whatever it was. So we said "Let's cover it in fur, as there's no flamethrowers." Flamethrowers were against the rules, you're not allowed to do that, but what they didn't tell us was that the House Robots were going to have flamethrowers!"

- Peter Redmond on the fur Ironically, the team had decided to cover their robot in fur after seeing in the rules that flamethrowers were not allowed within the rules, unaware that House Robot Sergeant Bash would be allowed one.

The Fur Virus as it was described, refers to how the Diotoir fur spread so greatly. Not only did the Nemesis team clad their robots in polkadot fur, they wore full outfits comprised of vests and demon hats made from the same material. Jonathan Pearce was always incredulous as to how much of the fur Team Nemesis possessed, as even after a thorough scorching, the robot was freshly clad in fur.

These fur garments spread throughout the pits, with other teams and even other robots beginning to clad themselves in the fur. Firestorm and Panic Attack both clad themselves in Diotoir fur following their respective wins over Diotoir in Extreme 1. Wheely Big Cheese had a strip of fur strapped to its back during its heat of Series 5 after defeating Diotoir in the All-Stars in Extreme 1. The last occasion of the fur being seen on a robot was in Series 7, despite Team Nemesis not entering that series, when Mega Morg, formerly Diotoir's Tag Team partner, had some on the back.

To a lesser extent, both Nemesis and Diotoir featured huge bloodshot boggle eyes with green irises and large toothy luring grins. From Series 5/Extreme 1 onwards, Diotoir's grin was painted onto its front lifting weapon.

This trademark was continued into Techno Games, with Ulysses also being clad in fur with bloodshot eyes and a grin.

Humour
Team Nemesis loved jokes, and frequently made on-screen actions as well as off-screen ones for the entertainment of the audience. Examples include their supposed bribery of Noel Sharkey before the Tag Team Terror Final in Extreme 1, the "sabotage" of Firestorm and the subsequent confiscation of their sportsmanship awards, as well as the fact that they tied up Jack Charles with Duct Tape before he was rescued by Ellie Watts.

Peter, Joe and Cairon's jokes often reflected on their robots. In Series 2, Nemesis entered the battle with a large novelty kebab on top, in the hope that it would catch fire and burn up. Also, when entered by Vic Reeves in the Celebrity Special, Diotoir sported enormous glasses in mockery of the celebrity.

In addition, Diotoir's website during its time was filled with jokes, implying that Peter Redmond was a secret agent, Joe Gavin was only three feet tall, and that Cairon Byrne was responsible for the invention of viagra.

Sportsmanship
Team Nemesis was recognised for being one of the most sportsmanlike teams on the show. On many occasions, Team Nemesis went out of their way to help others, and this was recognised through Diotoir or Nemesis winning the Sportsmanship Award three years out of six, in Series 1, 3 and 4. Jonathan Pearce incorrectly quoted Team Nemesis as the winners of the Series 2 Sportsmanship Award during their battle against The Steel Avenger in Series 3.

The best example of their generosity was in Series 3's international events. The Terror Australis team, who had flown all the way from Australia, suffered an enormous disappointment as their robot broke down irreparably, and it appeared that they would be unable to continue competing. Team Nemesis, however, lent the Australians Nemesis, allowing them to make it more Australian-themed and then enter the International Championship with it. "Hypno-Disc lost a tooth in its battle with V-max, which was welded back on by the famous and heroically talented Zulu of the Diotoir team."

- Hypno-Disc website

Team Nemesis, and in particular Cairon Byrne, would always lend a hand around the pits. His skills in welding were particularly useful, and many roboteers sung his praise. Areas of note included him helping Sonic attach a front blade for a weapon, and also welding one of Hypno-Disc's teeth back on after it had broken during its Series 4 battle with V-Max.

Mechatrons
Redmond, Byrne and Gavin formed their own company Mechatrons in 1996, which still runs to this day.

Wins/Losses

 * Wins: 13
 * Losses: 13

Outside Robot Wars
Team Nemesis also built Ulysses, a walkerbot, which was powered by a 50cc engine, that won gold (beating reigning champion Tecumseh to do so) in the internal combustion sprint event in Robot Wars' sister show Techno Games in 2001. It lost to Scuttle-B-Squared in the final of the renamed Internal Combustion sprint (Now Heavyweight Sprint) the following year. The name Ulysses came from Roman Mythology. Diotoir also entered the Assault Course of the 2002 Techno Games as Stanoscloir but lost to Kat's Whiskers in round 1. Team Nemesis also built a Rubik's cube solver for Techno Games called RuBot II, which for a period held the world record and appeared in the 2010 Guinness Book of World Records.

In an interview in 2013, Redmond confirmed that he still owns Diotoir, but it hasn't appeared in combat for several years. However, he did say he plans to occasionally bring Diotoir out for exhibition battles in the future.