Footie
Pittock caught the ball cleanly. He looked around and then punted it up the field. Doran fumbled it and was tackled. Enraged she hit back hurling her hanging baskets (she always carried a spare pair) at the ferocious tackler. That was it, red card.
‘Come-on you Yellows!’ screamed the crowd, baying for blood.
The ball was hoofed down the field once more towards Pittock’s goal. Like an antelope he rose, all grace but so, so fragile. He should have kept half an eye on his own players. The 280 lb figure of Scatts came thundering in, momentarily turning the sky dark such was his bulk. Scatts caught the ball cleanly – and caught Pittock with his foot. Steel on blood and bone. A kind of ‘squishy’ sound. It didn’t help that Pittock and Scatts were on the same team.
Pittock was carried off, wounded. All the substitutes had already been used. The team was down to ten.
‘Come on you Yellows’ shouted the crowd, wishfully thinking of half time.
From the corner Hide headed out. It wasn’t a marvellous header, but it would do. The ball went in the general area of Sivewrong, the much-maligned winger. Fleet of foot, stylish to the extreme, clearly out of place in this team. In a fit of sardonic wit he dummied the ball, intending it to go to the player to his left, Kitchen. Maybe it was a bad hair day, maybe Kitchen was too used to ignoring Sivewrong. Who knows? But anyway the ball went out.
Sivewrong turned in disbelief. Kitchen reached for his own red card (occasionally whispered about in the Dillo chat rooms) . A ‘pre-emptive strike’ he thought. Sivewrong needed no such warning, he ran off the pitch, distraught.
‘Come on you Yellows’ said the crowd, wondering if they should turn round and watch paint dry.
‘Freedom!’ cried Fred, addressing the remainder of his team. ‘We all need freedom to innovate, to be creative – and yet we must work as a team…’
‘..and pull together’ interrupted Ian, always the governor.
‘Don’t look at the defence’ wailed Mordan, wondering whether her make-up bag was where she left it in the corner of the dug-out. ‘You always blame the defence and that’s just not right’ she continued.
‘Awww, kissy-kissy Mordan’ teased Harvey hoping to ease the tension. ‘Ars longa, vita brevis…carpe diem’ muttered JB. When JB spoke, others went silent, wishing they too had had an education.
‘You leave my arse out of it!’ bellowed Scatts raising his fist.
‘Come on you Yellows’ murmured the crowd in growing apprehension.
Fists flew.
Harvey hit JB who replied with a sneaky non sequitur when Harvey was not expecting it. (‘Noli me tangere’ JB thought to himself.) Mordan belted Hide who in turn snapped Fred’s walking cane as a sign of defiance. The ensuing melee involved the entire home side except for Eddie. He was last seen checking the safety structure of the goalposts. ‘Better quality in 1847’ he seemed to be saying, to no-one in particular.
The referee had no choice. All those involved had to go. He waved his red card at Scatts, Fred, Hide, Harvey, Kitchen, JB (‘pro tempore’ he responded), Mordan and Ian. They joined Doran, Sivewrong & Pittock (on the stretcher) in the dug-out.
That just left ‘Eddie’ ‘Safe hands’ Eddie he would be called in later years as he only let in 34 goals during the rest of the game.
‘Come on you Yellow’ whispered the crowd unaware, as was the ref, that the Dillo team actually had 12 players.
The Sun rating:
Pittock 7; Doran 38”; Harvey 6; JB 8; Scatts 9½; Sivewrong n/a; Fred 102; Eddie 10; Hide 7; Mordan 3½; Kitchen 1 Ian 5.
The author has asked the publisher to confirm that all characters are fictitious except one of them. With that exception, any resemblance in name or character to any other individual, alive or dead, is purely coincidental