Unseen Academicals

Ridcully brushed himself down. ‘No. We shall forgo the whistle, Mister Stibbons. And now, gentlemen, let the game commence.’

And thus, after a certain amount of bickering, Unseen University’s first football match in decades began. Instantly, from Ponder Stibbons’s point of view, various problems arose. The most pressing one was that all the wizards were dressed as wizards, which was to say alike. Ponder ordered the teams to play hats on and hats off, which caused another row. And that particular problem was exacerbated further because there were so many collisions that even the officially hatted kept losing theirs. And then the game was paused because it was declared that the statue commemorating Archchancellor Scrubbs’s discovery of blit was in fact three inches narrower than the venerable statue of Archchancellor Flanker discovering the Third Breakfast, thus giving an unfair advantage to the hatless squad.

But all these problems, foreseeable and inescapable, paled into insignificance compared with the problem of the ball. It was an official ball — Ponder had made certain of that. But pointy shoes, even if they have a very long point, cannot absorb the impact of the human foot kicking what is, when all is said and screamed, a piece of wood with a thin cloth and leather wrapping. Eventually, as another wizard was helped away with a sprained ankle, even Ridcully was moved to say, ‘This is damn nonsense, Stibbons! There has got to be something better than this.’

‘Bigger boots?’ suggested the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘The kind of boots you need for kicking this would slow you right down,’ said Ponder.

‘Besides, the men on the urn had nothing at all on their feet. I suggest we consider this research. What do we need, Stibbons?’

‘A better ball, sir. And some attempt at running about. And a general consensus that it is not a good idea to stop to re-light your pipe in the middle of play. A more sensible type of goal, because running into a stone statue is painful. Some grasp, however small, of the notion of teamwork in a gaming situation. A resolution not to run away if a member of the opposing team is rushing towards you. An understanding of the fact that you do not handle the ball in any circumstances; may I remind you that I gave up stopping play because of this since you gentlemen, when you were excited, persisted in picking it up and, in one case, hiding it behind your back, and standing on it. I would like to point out at this juncture that a sense of direction is worth cultivating vis-à-vis the goal that is yours and the goal that is theirs; inviting as it may be, there is no point in kicking the ball into your own goal, and nor should you congratulate and pat on the back anyone who achieves this feat. Out of the three goals scored in our match, the number scored by players into their own goal was’ — he paused and looked down at his clipboard — ‘three. This is a commendably high level of scoring, compared with football as currently played, though once again I must stress that issues of direction and goal ownership are of pivotal importance. A tactic, which I admit looked promising, was for the players to cluster thickly around their own goal so there was no possibility of anything getting past them. I regret, however, that if both teams do this you do not have a game so much as a tableau. A more promising tactic, which seemed to be adopted by one or two of you, was to lurk near the opponents’ goal so that if the ball came in your direction you would be ideally placed to get it past the custodian of the goal. The fact that in some cases you and the opposing custodian leaned companionably against the goal, sharing a cigarette and watching the play up-field, showed a decent spirit and may possibly be a good starting point for some more advanced tactics, but I do not think this should be encouraged. On this general topic, I have to assume that retiring from the field of play for the call of nature or a breather is acceptable, but doing so for a snack is not. My feeling, Archchancellor, is that our colleagues’ general desire to be never more than twenty minutes from some savouries may be satisfactorily catered for by a pause in the middle of the game. Happily, if they changed ends at that point, that would satisfy the complaints about one goal being larger than the other. Yes?’ This was to the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

‘If we change ends,’ said the Chair, who had put his hand up, ‘will that then mean that the goals that were scored into our own goal will now become goals scored against the opposing team since that goal is now physically theirs?’

Ponder considered the metaphysics of answering this one and settled for, ‘No, of course not. I have a whole list of other notes, Archchancellor, and regrettably they add up to us not being very good at football.’

The wizards fell silent. ‘Let’s start with the ball,’ said Ridcully. ‘I’ve got an idea about the ball.’

‘Yes, sir. I thought you would.’