Unseen Academicals

a cure for adolescent shyness and the one who, if you didn’t bring your proper gear, would make you PLAY IN YOUR PANTS. Venerable wizards who had faced down the most cunning of monsters through the decades trembled in damp adolescent fear as the scream went on and on, to be halted as sharply as it started.
    Ridcully fell forward on to the turf.
    ‘I do apologize for that,’ said Dr Hix, lowering his staff. ‘A slightly evil deed, of course, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it was necessary in the circumstances. The skull ring, remember? University statute? And that was a clear case of possession by artefact if ever I saw one.’
    The collected wizards, the cold sweat beginning to evaporate, nodded sagely. Oh, yes. It was regrettably necessary, they agreed. For his own good, they agreed. Had to be done, they agreed. And this verdict was echoed by Ridcully himself when he opened his eyes and said, ‘What the hell was that?’
    ‘Er, the soul of Evans the Striped, I think, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder.
    ‘In the whistle, was it?’ Ridcully rubbed his head.
    ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Ponder.
    ‘And who hit me?’
    A general shuffling and murmuring indicated that by democratic agreement this was a question that could best be answered by Dr Hix.
    ‘It was acceptable treachery under college statute, sir. Wouldn’t mind the whistle for the Dark Museum, if nobody objects.’
    ‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Ridcully. ‘Saw the problem, sorted it out. Well done that man.’
    ‘Do you think I could be allowed an evil chuckle, sir?’
    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