Q: What has Nerja got to do with Trivial Pursuit? A: It invented it!

IT is possibly the most successful board game of all time, with over 100 million copies sold in 26 countries and in at least 20 languages… and it was born in the Axarquia.

It happened after two young Canadian journalists stayed in Nerja in the winter of 1980, having quit their jobs to work on the game and persuade investors to part with their money.

Chris Haney, a high-school dropout, had been working as a picture editor in Montreal while his friend David Abbott was a sportswriter.

The pair lived at El Capistrano, a villa resort where Haney’s parents had a house, and they allegedly worked 16 hours a day thinking up questions for their game – fuelled by San Miguel. And lots of it.

But while they enjoyed the paella, the beer and strolls along the Balcon de Europa, they struggled to find investors for ‘Six Thousand Questions’, as it was originally called.

Just one Nerja resident decided to invest, a Canadian barman. He is now a millionaire.

The game went unnoticed for two years. They lost money on every copy they sold and it looked to be a disaster. But then once the first cheques starting rolling in they never stopped.

Within months it was selling by the million and in 1984, Time magazine called it ‘the biggest phenomenon in game history’.

And it is still incredibly popular, with Nerja’s first Trivial Pursuit tournament currently being planned for this year.