Bin To Earth, Matt Woods [red white and royal blue hardcover .txt] 📗

FOOTBALL


“Ouch! That really hurts!” says the head, as it rolls across the pitch towards the corner flag. It rests looking skywards, around a foot over the touchline. One of its teammates, a short little chap with hideously hairy feet, jogs over to check on his pal. He bends down and lifts the head by grabbing two clumps of its thick jet-black hair. He then places it in front of his face.

“What you doing over here?” enquires the hobgoblin.

The head stares straight back at him. It was quite good-looking by all accounts. It had a nicely chiseled jawline, deep-set crystal blue eyes, and a dumpy nose that conveyed a sort of cuteness. Its body, which presently was running in circles around the centre-spot, was chunky, yet muscular, the rewards of many hours of strenuous work outs, be it with or without its head!

The head, unsurprisingly, is a little annoyed.

“Bloomin daft so and so has dropped me again hasn’t he” it says, staring straight at the hobgoblin. “One of them blasted yetis’ then mistook me for the ball and walloped me straight over here. It hurt I can tell you!”

Stich the hobgoblin lowers the head and looks around the pitch. The head’s torso was now zig-zagging around the penalty box, looking more than a little disorientated. Without its head it was all over the place, narrowly missing a collision with a witch and an anxious looking wizard.

Over here!” yells Stich, still grasping onto several clumps of thick hair. The head becomes increasingly exasperated as it dangles perilously close to the hobgoblins ‘popping to the toilet bits!’

A few derisory sniggers are heard as several players recognise the body was always bound to struggle hearing without any ears! With no attempt whatsoever to retrieve its head the body continues weaving around the pitch, finally smacking torso first into the opposition’s goal post.

“Bloomin idiot!” says the head, trying to shake itself but inevitably failing to do so.

Realising there was only way to reunite the head with its body, Stich trots across the pitch then places the head back into its rightful position, underneath it’s owners armpit!

The game continues and several voices yell out for the ball. One of the yetis’ gives it a big kick towards the penalty box, sending it sailing over several players heads. It is eventually picked up by the witch at centre-back. And when I say picked up, that’s exactly what she did!

The witches name was Fizz, and most would have argued that the word unpleasant would have been a far too complimentary way to describe her. A more accurate way would have been to use words such as disrespectful, coarse, rude and hideous. Oh, and not forgetting flirtatious as-well! That was the thing; even though she could be an offensive old crone, she loved nothing more than trying it on with the opposite sex. She was quite simply a man eater, or, dependent on who was the current flavour of the month, a skeleton, wizard or goblin eater!

Currently she was hot on the heels of a creature named Freal. A lot of the locals couldn’t work out why she’d taken a shine for him, primarily because he was a ghost, and, like most apparitions, was transparent; a little tricky if you wanted to take the relationship to the next level! Also the fact that Freal once said he would rather throw himself into a huge pit of molten fire whilst jabbing himself repeatedly with a mega sharp fork than go on a date with Fizz led most to believe she wasn’t quite his type!

What made her desire for the opposite sex all the more bizarre was that she really was a hideous looking crone! She couldn’t have weighed more than six or seven stone, with a decent proportion of that weight coming from the revolting warts peppered all over her body. She had a gaunt face, a stereotypical pointy nose, a grotesquely scabby chin and a body that had only a little more flesh than her fellow team-mate, Skeleton Bob.

It didn’t put her off though. If there was a handsome looking male on the loose, Fizz would always be first on the scene to try and ensnare him.

The ball held firmly in her bony hands, Fizz starts running towards the opposition’s goal. Several onlookers start to get a little riled at the witches’ lack of respect for the laws of football, and a few start to jeer. This annoys Fizz, as folk rarely showed her contempt, probably because they feared she would proposition them by inviting them back to hers’ for a coffee and afters! She stops, puts down the ball, bends over then proceeds to wiggle her bottom at a small group of bemused dwarfs who’d, up until then, been contentedly watching the game.

Not missing the opportunity to seize the ball, the yeti in central midfield stomps across, intecepts the ball, takes two gigantic strides then smashes it into the top corner of the goal.

One-nil to the Yeti’s!

The small yeti fan base watching from behind the goal wave their huge fists in the air and celebrate by grunting an awful lot. Cheering just wasn’t the done thing when you were an eleven foot ape like monster!

Progress to today’s final had been relatively straight forward for the yeti’s. They’d cruised through the previous rounds with the minimum of fuss, generally either stomping on their opposition, or, as they did in the quarter finals, picking one or two of them up and throwing them behind the goal. They were a formidable team, and were proving to be tough opposition for today’s other finalists, The Misfits.

From the re-start Stich the hobgoblin lays the ball to Ross the zombie. Although no-one on the team could profess to being a good footballer, they really didn’t come any worse than Ross. He was more a hindrance than a help, mainly because he had a tendency to fall over whenever he tried to run. Anything more than a gentle stride and he’d plummet straight to the ground. On this occassion though Ross foregoes any attempt at a sprint, and just smacks the ball goal-wards. Well, that was the direction he was hoping for, the ball eventually ending up thirty or so feet away from its intended target.

“ Sorry” yells Ross, to anyone who’d listen. “That was a real bad shit!”

Ah yes, Ross did have slight problems with his speech! He regularly mispronounced words, much to the amusement at times of those around him. In all fairness to the zombie though he had recently enrolled himself onto a speech development course, which he hoped, as he put it, ‘would holp make my speech bitter’ and ‘lut me to talk jist like the rust of you!’

From the resulting goal kick a yeti and wizard ready themselves to head the approaching ball. Before it reaches them the wizard starts to chant some form of strange mantra. Not taking his eyes of the ball, the blue-cloaked magician is heard spouting a stream of utter gibberish, mingled with one or two words that seemed to make sense. His final utterance as the ball reaches them is something along the lines of haroosha haroosha, carmy kick arse kendal mint cake, gara moona, gara moona, jashwan pass the dutchie on the left hand side, gaboosh, gaboosh.

Whatever the reason for his bizarre mutterings it did little to help his cause as the ball smacks the bearded wizard square in the face. As he reels back in pain the yeti, clearly in a mischievous mood, brings the ball under control, takes a step back, then kicks it right in the wizards not to be talked-abouts. The wizard falls flat on his back!

Keen to bring some control to proceedings, the referee runs over to try and prevent the situation from escalating. Ordinarily this type of incident would have been quickly resolved by a confident and forthright official. Problem was, today’s referee was Jamba ‘The Anxious’, a dwarf with a very nervous disposition. A resolution would therefore have to be sought by alternate means!

“Send him off!” says Freal, a ghost adorned in bright pink wellingtons “We can’t have that sort of behaviour going on.”

The referees puzzled look implies he really hasn’t the foggiest what to do.

By now most of the players were crowding around the injured wizard. Aside from a few moans and groans he appears to be okay. In fact, he seems more bothered about stopping Fizz from looking up his cloak as he lays spread-eagled on the pitch than anything else! The witch barges several players out of the way so she can get a better look!

“I’m not sure he’s broken the rules.” contributes Skeleton Bob. Bob was a wise old chap, very knowledgeable and a most affable Skeleton. Most who lived on Elzac respected him a great deal. “What do you think Jamba?” continues Bob, turning to face the referee.

Well that caught Jamba off guard. “Er..well…um…it’s er…it’s…um, well, it’s probably best you don’t ask me really - I’m…er…er… not very good at these sort of things” comes the jittery reply.

One of the yeti’s shakes his head. “Why’s he the ref?” he grunts, his voice deep and also a little threatening.

“Because he’s the only one who has received full training and got his referees accreditation” replies Sue, a Banshee, as ever spruced up in a pretty flowery dress “And he’s got a whistle.”

“Could we not just carry on and pretend it didn’t happen?” questions a goblin.

By now the wizard was back on his feet with Fizz looked more than a little disappointed. “Easy for you to say mate” says the wizard, brushing blades of grass off his sparkly blue cloak. “I’d like to see you carry on after a ball has been belted into your delicates at close range.”

“Why don’t we just send him off?” suggests the headless man, his head now nestled comfortably under his arm.

“What with?” queries a dwarf.

“What do you mean what with?” says the headless man irritatingly “A bloody red card I would think!”

“Have we got any?” asks Skeleton Bob turning to the ref.

“Ahh…Um…Errr…Well…Um…” replies Jamba.

A few boos from the crowd are heard as several onlookers begin to get exasperated with the referees inability to sort out a minor rumpus. One particularly irate goblin suggests, very audibly so all could hear, that Kallbran Mackintosh, the blind one legged dwarf from Kaisers Dune, was free if Jamba wanted the afternoon off!

Todays’ crowd wasn’t particularly sizeable, with no more than around fifty or so in attendance. Football wasn’t particularly popular in Elzac, most preferring to indulge in a spot of Slap The Duck or, when the mood took them, Kick The Goose.

The supporters who had made the effort came in all shapes and sizes though. Giants mingled with dwarves, witches with wizards, goblins with zombies, and so on. Although most had come to support The Misfits, around half a dozen yeti’s had made the effort to attend to give their team encouragement. Crowd segregation wasn’t particularly required, as over the years it had become abundantly clear that a dividing piece of rope would never prevent a strong hairy ape from causing a bit of agro if they were hell-bent on doing so!


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