A Blink of the Screen (34 page)

A highly skilled player from Genua, well known for having many different approaches to the task in hand. Excellent striker, with a regrettable tendency to handle the ball when excited.

[ 7b ]
Professor Rincewind
Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography (UU), Chair of Experimental Serendipity (UU), Reader in Slood Dynamics (UU), Chair for the Public Misunderstanding of Magic (UU), Chair of Approximate Accuracy (UU)

Rincewind is possibly the fastest man on any field. Unfortunately, he frequently forgets to take the ball with him. Interestingly, the verve with which he speeds away clouds the perception of his opponents who find it difficult to believe that the ball is actually
behind
them now and is heading in the opposite direction.

[1.618 ]
Dr Ponder Stibbons
HEM (UU), DThau (UU), Reader in Non-Volatile Intelligence (UU), Cantoride Speaker in Slood Refurgance (UU)

Player / Coach. Used to lose his glasses early in the match and now has them taped to his head. Tactical thinker, some of the time. One of his boots flies off for no known reason.

[ 9 ]
Gryffid Tabernacle Evans
(Evans the Striped)

The only player in the UU squad who is officially dead. He is, in fact, all that remains of the last UU sports master whose ghost hangs on in the enormous brass whistle that was all he left behind. Regrettably, people sometimes forget that blowing the whistle will cause them to be temporarily overwhelmed by the spirit of the late Evans who will then send everyone on a long cross-country run in their underwear for forgetting their sports kit.

[ 8 ]
Dr J. Hicks or Hix
Professor in
Unspeakable Dark Arts
Post Mortem Communications (UU), DThau, Impissimus Holder of the Silver Skull (3rd Class)

Under university statute is allowed, expected and required to foul. After all, there is no point in being the official bad person if you play by the rules. The only player who is prepared to wear the number eight. Will occasionally leave free tickets to his notorious amateur dramatic presentations in order to demoralize the opposition.

[ 1 ]
The Librarian
DThau, Professor of L-space Studies

A second number one (because he sulked). Born to defend the goal, since he can swing from the posts and very nearly reach the total width of the goal while standing in the middle.

[ 10 ]
Alf Nobbs (No Relation)
One Year Long Service Bledlow Medal (UU), Five Year Long Service Bledlow Medal (UU), Ten Year Long Service Bledlow Medal (UU)

A good all-round player, whose talents have been honed by chasing generations of students after the pubs have shut. Feels he has a mission in life to restore the good name of the Nobbs clan. Wears enormously large and heavy boots. People have learned to flee at the sound.

[ 206 ]
Charlie
(No other name known)

Hasn’t yet taken the field for UU since the Football Association of Ankh-Morpork is divided on the eligibility of a walking skeleton. Nevertheless he turns up to training and as Dr Hicks points out, is very good for anatomical practice and carries the magic sponge.

[ 4 ]
Trevor Likely
(Education unknown)

Not formally a team member, although has played once for UU. The most highly skilled man alive with the traditional tin can, which he can practically cause to defy gravity, but is known to have difficulty with the standard spherical ball.

[ 9 ]
Mr Nutt
(Education: More than you could possibly imagine)

Player / Coach. Perhaps the most skilled tactician ever to lace up a boot. Is possibly the only player ever to use the word
zeitgeist
in everyday conversation. Particularly skilled in the philosophy of the game, he can get an axiom containing a paradox past an opposing player before the man even notices that his shorts have fallen down.

[ 1001 ]
The Luggage

Surprisingly, not allowed on the team because of its total incapability of understanding what a game is. Also has too many feet.

Players from other teams

[ 7 ]
Jimmy Wilkins
(Pigsty Hill Pork Packers)

Jimmy Wilkins soon excelled himself as captain of the Porkies with his ability to turn cartwheels on the pitch and shoot upside down. Often this has bewildered unsuspecting goalkeepers sufficiently for the ball to have hit the back of the net before they have even realized that it was on its way.

[ 4 ]
J. W. Rickett
(Pigsty Hill Pork Packers)

A master of fine ball control, Kick it Rickett has been known to run half the length of the pitch with the ball apparently balanced on the tip of his boot. He has only failed to become a true football great because of his absolute reluctance to ever pass the ball to anybody else and once famously stormed off the pitch when one of his team tried it. As they said, he was a great player, if only you jumped out and tripped him up at the right moment.

[ 1 ]
Charlie Barton
(Treacle Mine Tuesday – Goalkeeper)

Very seldom does any ball get past Charlie (Big Boy) Barton who, it is rumoured, has to be crowbarred from the goal at the end of the match. This is a result of his phenomenal pie consumption and has led to the Ankh-Morpork Football Association declaring that the Miners’ goalmouth must be at least twice as wide as that of their opponents so that there may be room for the ball to be put in.

[ 6 ]
Aknon Smyth
(The Dimmers)

Stalwart of the Dimmers, Holy Aknon, as he is known, belongs to a small sect that has to say prayers every fifteen minutes. Fans are used to him dropping to his knees in the middle of the game which, coincidentally, trips up at least one opposing player.
Following
this, the game has to go on hold until he finishes his prayers, after which he will spring away in some hitherto unknown direction. The Ankh-Morpork Football Association is wrestling with this conundrum.

David ‘Dave’ Likely
(Education: none)

Deceased. All-time holder of the highest lifetime score (four goals) in the street version of the game. Dave Likely is the archetypical footballer, from his huge baggy shorts to his hobnail boots. Unfortunately he refused to wear any head protection at all, which is why he is the
late
Dave Likely.

[ 2 ]
Andy Shank
(The Dimmers)

Andy Shank is a leading ‘face’ amongst the Dimwell supporters as well as in the Ankh-Morpork Shove. His father is the feared captain of the Dimwell team and Andy may well inherit the title due to his unbridled savagery and skill in all forms of close combat. He inspires fear in his associates almost as much as in his enemies. Known to the City Watch as a particularly bad lot he is certainly one to keep an eye out for, all the time if possible.

[ 8 ]
Joseph Hoggett
(Captain – Pigsty Hill Pork Packers)

A skilled player of the old game of street football (aka Poor Boys’ Fun, the Game, the Shove). Elected captain of United at the meeting of the captains of all the city’s major football teams. Very strong – it is reputed that he can lift a pig carcass in each hand.

[ 6 ]
Swithin Dustworthy
(Captain – The Cockbill Boars)

[ 9 ]
Harry Capstick
(The Cockbill Boars)

Other players: Tosher Atkinson, Jimmy the Spoon, Spanner, Mrs Atkinson, Willy Piltdown, Micky Pulford, The Brisket Boys (F and Q)

Referee

Archchancellor of Brazeneck
(formerly known as
The Dean
)

The visit by the Archchancellor of the new red-brick university in Pseudopolis to his former colleagues at Unseen Unversity opportunely coincided with the inaugural foot-the-ball match. He was appointed referee and so got to use the haunted whistle of Gryffid Tabernacle Jones, the long deceased sports master of UU. No sportsman, he was known as ‘two chairs’ in his old Alma Mater due to his immense girth and love of gargantuan meals.