GGTTP 1 - 5 Score Score Quick Quick

“So that’s that, then.”  Glorfindel stood in the coach’s office, watching nervously as he piled stacks of old match reports and balance sheets and player records around the mountain of broken furniture, sitting precariously high in the middle of the room.

“That’s that,” grimaced Coach Lysenko, stuffing handfuls of dry parchment into the pile, filling the gaps between the splintered wood.

“The dream is...”  ventured the elf anxiously as he bobbed beside Lysenko’s shoulder, curiously watching.

“It’s over,” seethed Lysenko, cramming in more parchment.  “Dead and buried.”

“I mean, it’s odd.  I remember the game.  I remember all of the booing and the hissing from the crowd, I remember Clew-Neith having his teeth smashed in, I even remember Kelm scoring, but...”

“But it’s like we weren’t even there,” spat the coach.

“Yes, that’s exactly – What are you doing?”

“What?” Lysenko looked up, like he was seeing Glorfindel for the first time.  “Oh, nothing,” he waved innocently.  “Just tying up a few loose ends.  You know, paperwork.”

“Paperwork?  But it’s all over the floor.  And why do you need lamp oil?”

The stink of the flammable liquid made the elf’s nostrils burn and his head spin as Coach Lysenko splashed gourd after gourd of it over the brittle parchment and broken wood.  When he was done, he threw the empty containers onto the pile and fished a wooden matchbox from his pocket.

He drew a match and struck it.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”  Glorfindel squealed.  He grabbed the coach’s wrist before he could toss the match onto the bonfire.

“End-of-season fireworks,” he smiled darkly.

“Gods!  You’ve gone mad!  WAIT!  Come on... Think about this.  We’ve still got one last match left!  You know, to wrestle back the glory from the clutches of obscurity!  Go out on a high!  Show the world that we’re still the best!”

The coach couldn’t help but laugh.

“One last match?  One last match?  That’s where you’re wrong, Glorfindel.  We don’t have one last match.  Nobody will play us!”

“What?  Oh – but that’s good, isn’t it?  Nobody will play us?  Because they’re all too scared!”

“No, my friend.  Nobody will play us because they’re all too embarrassed to be seen on the same pitch.”

For an elf, Glorfindel had a surprisingly strong grip, but even as his fingers tightened around the coach’s wrist, he realised it was pointless.  Lysenko simply smiled and let the whickering match fall from his fingers...

***

Glorfindel was shaking, despite the heat from the raging pyre which had once been their stadium, and it was only now that they were both at a safe distance, watching everything burn, that it had all started to sink in.  The elf’s singed hair was still smoking and what few patches of clothing remained were, he suspected, burned onto his skin.

“Quite pretty, really, don’t you think?”  Coach Lysenko had tears in his eyes, born neither of sadness nor the smoke, as he gazed at the flickering orange inferno.

Glorfindel could say nothing.  Even his miserable whimper was lost in the crashing roar of breaking wood as the western stands collapsed into the undulating flames.

“S’alright, Glorfindel.  We were insured,” Lysenko tried to reassure him.  His skin was blackened by smoke and all that remained of his garments was his favourite cap, emblazoned with the words ‘Head Coach’.

The two of them stood naked in the orange glow of their combusting dreams as they watched the sparks dance high into the clear night.  It felt like hours had passed before Lysenko finally spoke again:

“We’re gonna need a new stadium.  And a new name.”

GGTTP 0 - 2 Zharrduk Zephyrs

“Brown paper package,” grimaced Glorfindel.

“Tied up with strings,” frowned Stormwind Monroe.

“Gods!” lamented Duran Fiennes.  “How I’ve come to loathe these things!”

It was the third parcel, on the third day, wrapped – much like the others –in waxed paper and spotted with blood.  It could have been a delivery from any butcher’s shop or fish stall in the land, but they knew that its contents would be somewhat less appetizing.

Coach Lysenko had been missing for two weeks now, captors unknown.  Apart from their initial note, there had been no communication other than a string (sometimes literally) of body parts sent to the team every time they lost a match.  They couldn’t help reflecting that, given their recent form, ‘Lucky’ Lysenko’s prospects weren’t good.

The Zephyrs had been an intimidating opponent from the start, having stomped, clawed and impaled their way up the league – gaining a momentum that most stone  walls would struggle to halt.

It had all started badly from the first whistle when Peregrine Pine-Cone, who was quickly becoming a master at such things, managed to completely mis-kick the ball and hand it to the Chaos Dwarfs as a touch-back.  After that, most of the first half had been a slow trundle of death as the Zephyrs relentlessly rolled down the pitch.

Fans who thought that this was the worst start possible were distressed to realise how wrong they were.  Before the Dwarfs were even halfway to the endzone, Khorakk Brassfist succeeded in killing Pine-Cone – which many fans felt was quite harsh, despite his disastrous kick-off.  Luckily, apothecary Donna DeNiro was on-hand to resuscitate, though even now his injuries remain grave.

So busy was DeNiro with her expired catcher that she was unable to prevent Kelm the Witless’ removal after a disastrous yet brave attempt to leap in amongst a pack of Bull Centaurs to retrieve the ball.  Her end was bloody and painful, but luckily not permanent.  One commentator was heard to cry, “Kelm the Witless?  Kelm the Reckless, more like!” and the name seemed to have stuck.

With two of the best players out of action and several more knocked out along the way, it was not hard for the Zephyrs to claim their first touchdown in the dying seconds of the half.

If the Players thought that things could only improve, then they were desperately disappointed at the beginning of the second half when, having kicked the ball down the field, the Chaos Dwarfs sprung into action before the Wood Elves had even had a chance to react.  Their carefully-planned attack strategy was thrown into complete disarray when they discovered that the Chaos Dwarfs were none of them where they were supposed to be and that their one remaining Wardancer was flat on her face.

Glorfindel was out of action, knocked out cold in the previous half, so it fell to Duran Fiennes to pick up the ball and throw it out of harm’s way.  But at the sight of two raging Bull Centaurs thundering towards him, he soon panicked and managed to fumble the ball, dropping it at his feet.

The remainder of the half was much the same as the first, the Wood Elves scrambling to stop the Chaos Dwarfs from picking up the ball and scoring.  Once more, they failed and the Zephyrs left the pitch celebrating their win, two touchdowns to nothing.

After that, body parts began to arrive on a daily basis.  “IF YOU LOSE AGAIN, WE WILL SEND BACK YOUR COACH, PIECE BY TINY PIECE,” the ransom note had read.  His captors were true to their word.

“Do we have to open it?” fretted Stormwind as Glorfindel’s trembling fingers fumbled with the string.

“We failed to win the last three games.  We haven’t scored in the last two.  This is happening because of us.  So yes, we have to open it.”

He cautiously laid aside the twine which had bound the package and gently began to unfold the paper.  He paused to gather his courage  and Donna DeNiro put a hand upon his shoulder to strengthen him.

He took a long breath and then finally he opened it.

The rest of the team had gathered around and their gasps echoed through the dressing room as one.

“OH MY GODS!” cried Stormwind.

“Is that his…?”  choked Clew-Neith, and fainted.

“Oh, the poor man!”  wept Hoffman.

“Barely a man now,” grimaced Auburn Branagh.

“But how will he… you know… wee?”  Panoply Cruz added, blushing.

A long time passed in silence as they all stared down at the dismembered member before them.  It felt like hours, but none of them could curb their morbid fascination.

It was Glorfindel who broke the silence:

“It’s very big, isn’t it?”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

When Hoffman exhaled, it sounded like a sigh of relief.

“Well that’s what I was thinking,” he exclaimed.  “‘Big’ doesn’t even cover it.  It’s massive!”

“I mean, the circumference alone is just… well…,” Glorfindel shook his head in disbelief.

“But how could they do this to the Coach?” wondered Panoply Cruz absently, captivated by the sight before her.

Donna DeNiro shook her head.  “It’s not human.”

“I know, dear,”  Glorfindel squeezed her hand. “They’re monsters, utter monsters.”

“No, you bloody idiots!” she groaned.  “That.  It’s not human.

The Elf turned.  “What do you mean?  I thought humans were all… that big.  Are you sure?”

“Well, I’ve seen enough of them in my time, loads - hundreds in fact, and -”

The whole room was looking at her.

“Well… I mean… professionally.  As a nurse.  Seriously, you lot!  It looks like it’s off a bull or something.”

“Have you seen many of those ones?” asked Branagh, expectantly.

She punched his shoulder and he collapsed to the floor.

“And what about yesterday?” she asked.  “The calf’s liver?”

They stared blankly.

“And the day before?  Sheep’s eyes?”

With the speed of a whale swimming through set cement, it slowly began to dawn on them.

“You mean – this isn’t from… a person?” someone asked.

“The parts aren’t…the coach’s?”  came from somewhere at the back.

“Somebody’s been playing you for fools,” declared DeNiro.

“To get us to play better?” gasped Glordindel.

“Didn’t work very well, did it?” she said.

“But who would…?” Glorfindel’s brow creased.  “Unless - ”

DeNiro gazed over at the coach’s cap, hanging by the door.  “He wouldn’t?  Would he?”

The room erupted with cries of “I’ll kill him!” and “I’ll cut it off for real when I get my hands on him!” before the team stormed out en masse, baying for the blood of their coach.

Only Thorn Cruise remained, staring longingly at the severed bull’s phallus, just wondering, out of nothing more than scientific curiosity, exactly what it would feel like in his hands.

Cautiously, Cruise looked around.  No-one here, he thought.

The Elf slowly reached out, his fingers trembling with excitement…

GGTTP 0 - 3 Flying By the Seat of Our Pants

“It’s a ransom note!” gasped Glorfindel as his trembling hands unrolled the parchment.

“Sherioushly?” coughed Kelm the Witless in disbelief, spitting her champagne onto her feet.  “Shomeone actually thinksh we’d pay to get him back?”  She’d been drunk since Coach Lysenko had vanished and, her team-mates surmised, it wasn’t out of grief.  “Let’sh all of us jusht calm down, have another gash of bubbly, and then get the hell out of here,” she slurred.

“And go where?”  Panoply Cruz snapped.

“Home, of courshh!  The Loren of Foresht!” She took another quaff from the bottle.  “Foresht of Loren,” she corrected absently.

“We’ve got games scheduled!” protested  Tarquin Rickman.

“She’s got a point,” sighed Duran Fiennes, shaking his head.  “Look what happened against the Pants.  We’re just not cut out for this sort of thing.”

Nobody said a word, the emotions were still too raw.  The jeers of the crowd had cut deeper than the actual sting of defeat in the end, but the defeat still hurt badly enough.  The Wood Elves had been left to shuffle off the pitch after being soundly beaten by the Skaven, without even a single touchdown to their name.  The Skaven had simply outclassed them completely and the Green Glade Players couldn’t even blame much of it on the brutality of their opponents.  True, they had been vicious creatures, but as Skaven went, they didn’t foul half as much as everyone  had expected.

That said, Roger the Rat Ogre had damn-near taken Hare-Foot Hoffman’s head off with a swipe of his tail, ruling the catcher out of the next game and leaving him with an injury that their apothecary, Donna DeNiro, feared he may never fully recover from, but really, that was the only serious injury.  Of course, it didn’t help that Glorfindel was still too traumatised after his experiences against their Dark Elf opponents in the last game to play, and losing Kelm the Witless to a brutal block in the first half by Uncle Rycos really put a strain on the rest of the team.

The Wood Elves had barely seen their opponents’ half of the pitch, instead spending most of the match chasing rats as they scurried past in the opposite direction – more often than not, carrying the ball.  At least the treeman, Girth Gielgud, had finally managed to draw blood with a crushing blow to the skull of Stan Nice Scarf.  That was, however, scant consolation for losing three touchdowns to nil.

Still, at least no-one had died…

Eventually Auburn Branagh broke the silence.  “What does it say?”

Glorfindel scanned the note, straightened, cleared his throat:

“Yea, gadzooks and forsooth!  Hear I, and my words of terrible woe!  ‘Tis with a leaden sadness upon my breast that I must with heartbroken sorrow declare this, the words of sinister and malicious deception, writ upon this dread parchment for all to –“

“Jusht read the bloody thing,” hiccoughed Kelm, stirring from an impromptu doze.

“Fine,” he bristled.  “Blah, blah, blah… got your coach… blah, blah, blah… if you lose another game… blah, blah, blah… little tiny bits… etcetera, etcetera…”

“What’s in the sack?” Branagh asked nervously.  It sat on the floor between them all, a leather bag, tied with a black bow.  The note had come attached to it.

“It says…” murmured Glorfindel, half to himself as he scanned the ransom note.  “Apparently it’s some sort of token from the coach…”

Tarquin Rickman hoisted up the sack.  “What, like proof of life?  Fair enough,” he said, upending it and unfastening the bow.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” urged Branagh, too late.  “It smells a bit like –“

Kelm wretched up half a bottle of champagne as the sack’s contents slopped across the floor.

“Oh, gods!  Is that –?”  Branagh’s hand went to his mouth.  “Did they literally just send us a sack of -?”

“Surely they could have found a better token than that!” Rickman broke in, covering his nose.  “It could be anyone’s… expulsion!”

“Oh,” intoned Glorfindel, trying to hold the parchment steady.  “Apparently, if we lose again, they’ll send us his bowels to go with it.”

“They want us to win every match?”  Branagh’s heart sank.  “They want us to win the league?”

“Well that’s him dead then.”  Rickman shrugged.

The team mumbled their general agreement, peppered with the occasional “bugger him” and “never liked him anyway”, their apathy and resignation quickly rising to a chorus of dissent.

Glorfindel threw down the ransom note and raised himself up.  “Enough!” he bellowed, silencing them all.  “What do you propose we do?  Nothing?  Do we abandon him?  Do we just sit on our hands?”

“I will gladly shit on my handsh!” offered Kelm, cheerfully.

“If you want to go home, then go!”  he flared.  “But remember this – we may have lost a game and the crowd may be jeering our names… but they are jeering our names.”

A few of the players looked at their feet, their cheeks taking on a red glow.

“So what’s it to be, then, eh?  A vote?” Glorfindel pressed them.  “To play, and to win.  Or to give it all up and go home?”

They mumbled agreement, but none of their eyes met his.

“As I thought,” he said.  “So, brothers and sisters…  Raise your hands.  Those in favour of returning to the Green Glade?” He nodded grimly.  “And those in favour of playing, and winning?”

There was a long silence, broken by Kelm managing to wake herself with her own snoring.

“So, it’s settled then,” Glorfindel sighed.

Kelm took another swig of champagne.

“I thin’ I’m going to be shick…”

GGTTP 1 - 1 Merciless Dominance

“GOOOOOOOOD EVENING, SPORTS FANS!”  Coach Lysenko bellowed as he burst into the dressing room.  The team looked up, unenthused.  Most were still sporting bandages and heavy bruising.

“Does he always have to say that whenever he walks through a door?”  Peregrine Pine-Cone mumbled quietly , more due to facial swelling than any desire not to be heard.

“I forgot to lock the privy door this morning,” shuddered the team’s apothecary, Donna De Niro.  “Any door, anywhere...” she lamented, dabbing a poultice of bread mould gently onto the gash across Peregrine’s  nose.

Lysenko looked tense, like a man who’d just taken on a Blood Bowl team as coach only to realise that perhaps they weren’t as much of a dead cert for the league title as he’d been led to believe.  He was very convincing in the role because that’s exactly what he was.

“What happened out there, champs?”  He clapped his hands together as he paced up and down along the benches.  “Where was my magic?”

From somewhere near Tarquin Rickman, he could have sworn he’d heard someone cough something which sounded suspiciously like “up your arse”.  He pressed on regardless.

“Where were my touchdowns, eh?”  He looked to each of their sullen faces in turn.  “Hoffman?  Where were you?”

“I was in the dug-out!” he scowled.  “Knocked out!”

“Oh.  Right.  But you, Peregrine!  Where were you?”

“I was lying next to him!” he snarled, through gritted teeth.

“Doing what?” the coach snapped.

Pine-Cone sneezed, spraying nasal blood across his own knees.  He shrugged at the coach, who seemed to accept that as an adequate answer.

“But Glorfindel!  Glorfindel!” moaned the coach.  “Glorfindel, where were –?“  he looked around the dressing room.  “Actually, where is Glorfindel?”

“He’s in the infirmary!” piped the apothecary.  “And he will be for the next three weeks!”

“What?  But he can’t be!”  Panic flashed across the coach’s face.  “I need him!”

“Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before to sent them in to play without any armour.”

“Their armour is their wits!” Lysenko explained.

“And scant armour it is too!”  She looked around at the eyes which were all suddenly upon her.   “No offense,” she shrugged apologetically.

Lysenko knew she was right.  He’d throw his team against their Dark Elf cousins, hoping that they’d be able to withstand their armour and their spikes, but Merciless Dominance (he should have taken a clue from their name, he knew now) had brutalised them effortlessly.  At one point, most of the team had been rendered unconscious – mainly by the mysterious mercenary Witch Elf that the Dominance coach had hired.  She had been so cruel and malevolent that he couldn’t help thinking that even the Dark Elves had seemed a little more at ease when she’d managed to get herself killed by falling over one of her own broken stilettos.

But still, Lysenko had been calling out “GET IN THERE!” and “HIT HIM!”, even as the Wood Elves were taken one by one out of the game.

He had to admit though, it wasn’t like they had actually lost the game.  A draw was okay, considering.  In fact, a draw was damned lucky, really.  If the Dominance hadn’t been so happy to hang back from scoring while they pummelled the Wood Elves, they could have won a crushing victory.  Instead, they had relied upon sneaking  a win at the end, which happened to backfire completely when Medusa, their remaining Witch Elf, managed to fumble the ball in the last seconds.  Though the fans (and Glorfindel) might not agree, Lysenko thought they’d gotten off pretty lightly.

If Glorfindel hadn’t have –

The coach turned pale suddenly and he felt beads of sweat prickling his brow.

“Three weeks, you say?”  He wrung his hands together, looking desperately at the apothecary.

“At least!” she declared.

“But that means... he’ll be out of the next game!”

De Niro nodded.

“Against the Pants!”

She nodded again.

“Can’t you do anything... you know... medical?”

She shook her head.

“Oh gods!”

The rest of the team shifted awkwardly in their seats as Coach Lysenko began to cry.

GGTTP 3 -1 Dulla's Kowboys

“But I don’t understand!”  Coach Lysenko shouldered his way past Auburn Branagh and blocked the doorway out of the dressing room.  “You guys won!  Again!”

The elf made a feint to the left but then dodged nimbly around to the right as the coach tried to stop him leaving.  Lysenko quickly turned on his heels and followed him down the corridor, struggling to keep up.

“We’re actors, Coach,” Branagh explained over his shoulder, not slowing a step.  “We’re not sportsmen.”

“But we’re second in the league!  You can’t leave now!  Money!  Glory!  FAME!"

Branagh’s step faltered a little.  He stopped, turned.

“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”  the coach pleaded with him.

“Girth got his nose broken!”  Branagh protested.

“Does the tree even have a nose?”  Lysenko decided to check next time he saw Girth.

“Well, it’s more like a sort of... well, it’s a kind of... knobby protuberance, but it looks like a nose.  And it’s broken.”

Lysenko had to admit, he hadn’t seen that one coming.  Even against orcs, when you could expect all manner of injuries to your players, treemen were the last ones  you’d expect to be finishing a game on a stretcher.  But Lysenko didn’t want to think about that one.  It had taken a team of six horses and a mile of rope to drag Girth from the field after Tonto the troll had head-butted him, and the treeman hadn’t spoken to anyone since.

“No,” the elf shook his head.  “We’re leaving.”

The coach sighed, raising his hands in submission.  “Fine, fine.  If there’s nothing I can do to change your mind...”

Branagh turned his back.

“Except...”  Lysenko patted down his pockets.  After a moment, he pulled out a small parchment envelope and handed it to Branagh.  “Not sure what this is,”  the coach shrugged.  “Someone left it outside the dressing room this morning.”

Branagh held up the envelope and examined the neat script penned immaculately in glittering purple ink.  “It’s for me,” he said.  The coach said nothing, but waited for the elf to open it.

“Lovely quill work,” the elf commented, as he unfolded the letter which was inside.

“Is it?” Lysenko asked innocently.   “Probably just some random bit of fan mail.”

Branagh’s eyes widened as he scanned the page.  “It is!” he gasped.

“Really?”  The coach offered nonchalantly.  “You must get those all the time.  As an actor.”

“Well, yes.  Now and then.  Occasionally.  Well, not at all really.”  The elf continued to read, picking out phrases every now and then, whispering them to himself in awe.  “Magnificent skill... the epitome of Blood Bowling mastery... a marvel to watch...  possibly the greatest player in the history of the sport!”  

Branagh hugged the letter to his chest, his eyes glazed with tears.  “THEY LOVE US!” he cried.  “THEY BLOODY LOVE US!”

Lysenko patted the elf on the shoulder.  “That’s nice,” he said.  “But I’ll let you get back to your acting, now.  The limelight awaits, no doubt.”

“The what -?  Oh no, that won’t do at all.  We’re not going anywhere.  We couldn’t possibly let down... the fans, could we?”

Lysenko smiled innocently.  “Well, if you insist...”

“I most certainly do!”  Branagh was practically marching back to the dressing room.  “I was thinking up a few new strategies, to be honest.  What if Glorfindel were to throw the ball to me rather than Pine-Cone or Hare-Foot?  Nobody would expect that, would they?  Bit of a twist in the tale, eh?”

“Um,” the coach mused, “we could think about it...”

“I mean, let’s face it, don’t you think I’m a bit wasted on the line of scrimmage?”

“Well... perhaps...” Lysenko wasn’t sure.

“Oh, you’ve got something on your fingers... Coach.”

“Have I?  It’s nothing.”  Lysenko quickly wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving a smear of glittering purple ink.  “Tell me about Glorfindel again?”

GGTTP 4 - 0 Astun Killa

It had been billed as the funeral of the decade, which would have thrilled Athelan Wynnslett wildly had it not been her own.  A ravenous crowd had gathered in and around the Green Glade, desperate fans and fellow thespians alike, eager to snatch one last glimpse of the faded starlet as she left the limelight forever.  The cream of the Ivy Wood A-listers were forced to grudgingly rub shoulders with the likes of autograph hunters, professional stalkers and vacuous celebrities, right down to  members of the great unwashed public who simply seemed to be there because they were wondering what the fuss was all about and didn’t really have anything better to do on a Thursday afternoon.  Even a few Blood Bowl teams had turned up, but most suspected they were more interested in the post-interment buffet.

There was barely room to move, and everybody stood – even the nWo, despite their enquiries about the availabilities of folding metal chairs.  In fact, every team that the Green Glade Travelling Theatrical Players had ever faced had turned up, if only to gloat - even Astun Killa.  Robbin da Pursey was given a wide berth by most of Athelan’s friends and colleagues, which was unsurprising as he’d been the one who’d killed her.

The game against the orcs had started off better than they had hoped for.  In fact, it started off perfectly.   The elves had elected to receive the ball and from the very start the orcs had seemed little more than lumbering oafs.  One thing nobody had failed to notice however was that they were lumbering oafs with muscle.  Lots of muscle.  Their philosophy seemed to be that if you could beat the elves hard enough with your fists, beating them at Blood Bowl would take care of itself.  Luckily, the shadow of the Araak-Frizko 69ers still loomed large (well, sort of...) in the elves’ memories and they knew that it was best to avoid things like fists in the face and studded boots to the groin – and they were very good at avoiding most things.  Peregrine Pine-Cone and Hare-Foot Hoffman owned the field when they were on the attack, able to evade  the attention of most of their opponents thanks to Kelm the Witless, who seemed to be attracting most of the orcs’ ire.

Despite being 1-0 up within the first few minutes of play, the match took a dire turn when Robbin da Pursey, tired of chasing Athelan around the pitch as she darted rings around him, asked her for an autograph instead.  Never one to turn down her fans, or indeed any sliver of attention whatsoever, Athelan whipped out her quill and a flattering engraved portrait which just so happened to be on her person.  She signed it with a flourish and a coy smile, giggling that the orc should be careful not to lose it.

“You couldn’t get a more valuable autograph!”  she grinned, giving him a flash of those big, blue eyes that she had been so famous for.

“’Cept if you woz ded,” da Pursey chuckled, “Den it’d make me even richer dan you are!”

She gave an awkward laugh which was followed by an even more awkward silence, marked only by her frozen grin and what could just  barely be described as thoughts gathering inside the Black Orc’s head.  Somewhere across the pitch, Peregrine Pine-Cone twisted his way through the opposition to claim his second touchdown of the match.  As the crowd erupted, the roar pushed da Persey’s thoughts into action and he quickly snatched the quill from Athelan’s fingers and plunged it deep into the socket of one of those dazzling blue eyes.

He’d sold the autograph to a wealthy collector from Skavenblight that very evening and now he had turned up to the funeral garbed in the finest furs and mails that money could buy.  As he’d swaggered into the Green Glade, his grin was a mouth full of golden teeth.

For the Wood Elves, the rest of the game was a blur but for almost losing Kelm the Witless to a vicious blow from Wio Furdunand.  Only the frantic patching-up of the team’s apothecary, Nurse Ratchytt, elevated her from being ‘dead’ to the rather more enviable status of ‘not being dead’.

The orcs made several drives forward, but their lust for a fight often left them forgetting to actually take the ball with them and it was Hare-Foot Hoffman who sealed the Wood Elf victory, scoring the team’s fourth touchdown after Pine-Cone had danced home for a hat-trick.  Still, the orcs seemed to have learned a lot from the game (if ‘learned’ is indeed a term which can be applied to creatures such as orcs), and they were  looking far more dangerous for it when they came to face their next opponent.  But for the elves, who should have been celebrating a glorious victory, it had become a melancholy affair as they beheld  Ivy Wood’s most lauded actress, gowned in white upon her funeral pyre.

“Couldn’t someone have taken the feather out?”  Clew-Neith whispered to Tarquin Rickman as the jutting quill quivered in the breeze.

There was a loud CRACK! from the back of the Glade and the congregation turned to see nWo star Hollywood Hogan go rigid and drop to the floor before convulsing like a dying fish.  His teammate Randy Savage  stood over him, clutching a metal chair.

“Oooooh yeaaaaaaaaaaaah!” he crowed, helping Hogan to his feet.  “You gotta try this, man!”

He handed Hogan the chair and turned his back, expectantly.  The rest of the congregation left them to it.

A robed Elder slowly climbed the dais and addressed the gathered crowd:

“And now, fellow mourners, sorrowful friends and celebrity hangers-on, we will hear about the wonderful life of our dearly departed Athelan from the one who knew her better than most - the Green Glade Travelling Theatrical Players’ very own Head Coach...”

There was silence, a long pause, and then an uncertain murmuring from the crowd.

The Elder scratched his beard, waiting.  He gazed across the gathered mass, his rheumy eyes expectantly hunting for movement, but the sea of people stood motionless.

The Elder leaned over the dais.  “Do you have a Head Coach?” he whispered urgently to Glorfindel of the East Wood, whose face had begun to redden awkwardly.

“When you say Head Coach...?” he replied.

“I mean, Head Coach,” the Elder hissed through his teeth.

“Oh.  No.  Never had one of those,” Glorfindel shrugged.  “Is it important?”

“Of course it’s imp –“  he wheezed.  “It’s in the rules!  You have to have one!”

“Well, I can’t just pull one out of my ar –“

The crowd suddenly squealed with delight as fireworks erupted around the edge of the Glade, sending up rockets which lit the sky and rained down fire in the team’s own colours.

“Who the hell set those off?” Glorfindel frantically looked around for some clue as to what was going on, but he heard the voice before he saw the face, and recognised it immediately:

“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENING, SPORTS FANS!!!”

And, leaving no cliché unturned, it started to rain.

GGTTP 3 - 1 nWo

Girth stood in the centre of the pitch, flexing his roots and cracking his branches together, waiting for the stripy man to blow his whistle which meant – as far as anyone had bothered to tell him – ‘hit stuff’.

The treeman wasn’t the only one getting restless.  The crowd had begun to jeer and fight amongst themselves.  Girth wasn’t sure what the issue was, but it seemed to have something to do with the lithe, spiky, she-elf who was loitering at the side of the pitch.  Hare-Foot Hoffman and a few of the other elves were swarming around the ogre referee, gesticulating wildly.  The ogre was shaking his head, but the elves we adamant.

“But we need her!  We’re not even proper players.  We’re actors!  And not even good ones at that!”  Hoffman pleaded.

“I are the refer-wot’sit and I says ‘NO’.”

“But you –“ the elf protested.

“Is you deaf, flimsy elf?  Does you want Wot’sit ter rip yer ears off so’z you can hear better?”

“Oh, now that doesn’t even make sense!”  He threw up his hands but as the ogre’s face darkened, Hoffman quickly used them to cover his ears.

Glorfindel of the East-Wood shouldered Hoffman aside, to interject.

“It. Is. A. Perfectly.  Legal. Inducement!”  He  punctuated every word by hammering his fist into the palm of his other hand.

“Wot’sit.  Says.  No.  Mercenary.  Wardancer!”  The ogre punctuated every word by hammering his fist into the face of the Wardancer.  When she fell to the floor, bubbles of blood popping from her nostrils with each shallow, failing breath, the matter seemed settled and the elves sulkily shuffled back to their half of the pitch.

Barely had they taken up their positions (mostly, behind the treeman) when the roar of the crowd was drowned by deafening blasts of music which rippled around the stadium and made the pitch hum.

When the nWo arrived on the pitch, it was like nothing the elves had ever seen.  The pyrotechnics alone left them staring upwards, dumbfounded, as the starbursts and multi-coloured explosions lit up their awed faces.  

The Chaos Pact team swaggered from the tunnel, flexing their muscles and soaking up the adulation of the crowd.

“Well that’s just showing off,” snapped Luthien, shaking his head as two of the marauders darted across the pitch, one shouting “oooooh yeaaaaah!” while another tore their own shirt off.

Inexperienced as they may have been, the elves did at least have the speed advantage over the nWo and they hoped to use it to their advantage.  When it came to the toss, the elves had called ‘heads’ and, luckily, when Wot’sit the referee had thrown the expired remains of the mercenary Wardancer into the air, she did indeed land on her head.

The elves elected to receive the ball and wasted no time in trying to score.  Glorfindel scooped it up effortlessly, to even his own surprise, but rather than elect to throw it (as per their pre-arranged plan), he simply cried, ‘Don’t hit me!  Don’t hit me!’ and hid within a throng of his fellow players.

After spending a career playing tragic lovers and damsels in distress, Kelm had decided that her role should be more physical in this production and proceeded to punch her way through the descending pack of marauders as Glorfindel was edged up the field.

Girth became embroiled in a blow-for-blow showdown with The Giant and Scott Norton.  He occasionally managed to fell The Giant, but each time, the Chaos Troll got back up and retaliated until the treeman was eventually knocked down.

While Girth was struggling to stand, the minotaur Kevin Nash charged his way through the elf lines, scattering their modest defence and impaling the hapless journey-elf who had been forced on in place of the now-dead mercenary.  Nobody had bothered to learn his name, and consequently nobody seemed to notice as he was stretchered off – they were too busy trying to fend off attacks from Hollywood Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage as they fought to get their hands on Glorfindel.  At the last minute, Glorfindel managed to dart free from his fragile cage and weave around the clumsy lunges of the marauders to score.

Once the nWo took the offensive, however, things started to get a lot more painful for the elves.  The powerhouse trio of the ogre, the troll and the minotaur continued to plough through the Green Glade Players as Lex Luger surged down the pitch with the ball.  The elves were throwing themselves at the players who had gathered protectively around him, but simply bounced off the oiled and rippling flesh of the marauders.  

It wasn’t until Luger made a break for it and tripped over one of his own untied laces that Kelm the Witless managed to snatch the ball away quickly and throw it to Hare-Foot Hoffman.  He then seamlessly handed it to Peregrine Pine-Cone who managed the second of the elves’ touchdowns just before half-time.

During the break, the nWo had decided that trying to actually score when there was a pitch full of elves wasn’t the best of plans and came out fists flying.  The Giant managed to snap Luthien’s spinal column, pulling  it clean out of his back.  The crowd screamed in appreciation as the troll yanked away at it, making the elf’s corpse dance like a marionette.

The minotaur, Kevin Nash, didn’t fare so well.  He had thundered onto the pitch, his blood boiling and his hooves tearing gouges in the earth as he charged towards his opponents, but he was caught out by Athelan Wynnslett.  No sooner had the crowd bored of watching The Giant make Luthien moonwalk across the pitch, they turned their attention to Nash, only to see him curled into a ball and sobbing as Wynnslett treated him to a rendition of her tragic final scene in ‘Four Weddings and a Milking Parlour’.  Sadly, half of the elves had themselves stopped to critique her performance and Sting managed to sneak in a touchdown for the nWo before they’d even noticed.

It was during the nWo’s celebrations, incorporating a heavy rock soundtrack, smoke-effects and a light show, that Kelm the Witless took the opportunity to grab the ball and make a dash for it – scoring the Green Glade Players’ third touchdown of the match and emphatically sealing their victory.

Despite their victory, Kelm the Witless later found Tarquin slumped in the dressing rooms, sobbing helplessly.

She put an arm around him, but he barely seemed to notice.

“What’s the matter, love?” she asked.  “Are you crying because they killed Luthien?”

He shook his head.

“Oh,” she said.  “Are you crying because we won?  Because you’re so happy?”

“No...”  he sobbed.

“Oh,”  she said.  “Then what’s they matter...?”

“It’s the... the nWo...” he sniffed.

“Oh?  What about them?”

“They...  They...  They ran off with half our winnings!”

“Oh.”  She said.  “Those little sh—!”