This was a big day for Devia-natses, never before had he been invited into the private quarters of Gerald Pemberton-Fitzroy, the captain, coach and founder of the Six Feet Underdogs Blood Bowl team. Indeed, as far as Devia-natses could remember, no goblin had ever been allowed into Gerald’s quarters other than to empty chamber pots and aid with some of the Marquis less pleasant bodily functions.

He took a quick inventory of himself, checking that he was properly attired to enter the presence of Gerald and his inner circle of top players. He was wearing his least stained Underworld shirt, the one with the extra large neck hole to allow for his second head (Devia-natses felt sure his other head would have said something negative about this shirt but he had long ago sewn his miserable and carping twin’s mouth shut using a pair of boot laces and a sharpened orc toenail for a needle), he had scraped the mould out his jockstrap (inside and out) and had his best face stomping boots on – the ones with the extra big spikes. He had tried to get his boots clean but looking down at them now he could still see the smeared viscera and the odd stray piece of scalp still adhered to their surface. Regardless, he had no more time for spit and polish as he strode proudly towards the tumbled down pit owners house that served as the Underdog’s headquarters, stopping only to pull his jockstrap down and flatulate explosively in the general direction of his fellow goblin team members who were watching on jealously.

Devia pushed open the door on its one remaining rusted hinge and waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom inside. He first made out Gerald, the bloated form of the Warpstone Troll who had once been a Marquis of the Empire before his mind and body were twisted by the dark powers of Chaos, reclined on a sagging and scorched ches-long recovered from the burned out shell of Bogart Hill Hall. The troll was wearing tattered remnants of his former existence – a waist coat, top hat and monocle with his silver handled cane leaning against the wall behind. To Gerald’s right sat Ber’anx, the horned skaven superstar was cradling his mangled right arm on to which a giant can opener had been grafted in place of his hand. Just behind Ber’anx sat Nor’zarax, a simpleton who followed and imitates Ber’anx in everything he does, including the severing of his right paw to accommodate a claw. To Gerald’s left was Laz’pler, who sneered in disgust at the sight of Devia entering, and Rex’iccles who was sat cross legged on the dirt floor wearing a paper crown and intently watching an apparently empty corner of the room.

Gerald smiled broadly and welcomed Devia into the room in his clipped upper class accent (only slightly marred by the presence of his oversized trollish teeth)
‘Ah, Devia my dear….. er… chap, do pull up a seat!’
Devia obediently plonked himself down on a small three legged stool just inside the doorway.
‘You may be wondering why I have summoned you here’
‘Yeh summut like that’
‘oh please don’t speak, unless asked a direct question, the insipid witterings of your kind are quite vexous to the civilised ear you understand’
‘Eh? ya’wat?’
‘Eee meenz shut eet you leettle scrote’ interjected Laz’pler ‘I seez wee shouldn’t have eeees kind in eeer theeees geeeeenskeeens are only good for keeeeeling’
‘now now Laz’pler, we are all aware of your objections to including Devia in our discussions, no need to make the gentle…. goblin fellow feel unwelcome’
‘Eeee ain’t no gentle eeeneeething boss, eees a freeekin psycho like the beeest of us’ added Ber’anx (‘freeeking psycho’ echoed Nor’zarax)
‘Well quite, which is exactly the point old chap, do remind me Devia in the last match how many times did you… accidently… stamp on the heads of the opposition players, and to what effect exactly?’
‘Ya mean ow meny time I kicked dem smelly elves when dey’re down – I recon it was…’ (Devia slowly counts on his fingures) ‘nine fouls and four ov those were put in tha’ ‘ospital with sum others out cold’
‘Quite the casualty count my dear… creature... quite the casualty count, without which we could well have suffered another rather humiliating defeat. But do please avoid referring to it as fouling, it makes it sound so lowbrow don’t you know. I’d much prefer the term ‘creative boot placement’ if you wouldn’t mind’
‘Eh?’
‘So in light of your obvious talent towards creative boot placement, something the rest of us in this room would not readily engage in, I have summoned you to offer your finest sagacious advice on how best to develop this aspect of our game with view to further improving our team’s win ratio’
At this point Rex’iccles starts giggling whilst jabbing at the empty air with a pocket knife then starts singing to himself ‘Iccle iccles, all dead, all dead, kicked in the head, kicked in the head, nasteeee gobbo boots all red, all red, all Iccles dead dead dead….’
Gerald, however, carries on, ignoring the deluded rodent’s outburst
‘Let us sum up our current position…’
‘Freeeking sheeet’ Ber’anx suggests (‘Freeeking sheeet’ echoes Nor’zarax) ‘weeee’re almost last eeeen theeee leeegue, eeeven theeee Runtz ov Gork have ee beeeetter weeen rate theeen weee do’ (‘weeee do’ adds Nor’zarax) ‘An I heeev a greeet beeeeg targeeet on meee arse! (‘On meee arse! On meee arse!’) to demonstrate the truth of this fact Ber’anx leans over to reveal to Devia a neatly dyed bullseye design on the fur of his rear end. Nor’zarax also turned around showing that he had scratched a rough equivalent of Ber’anx’s new marking into his own buttocks, probably using his own claw.
‘Well that is true my finely furred friend, but all is not as bleak as perhaps it appears, for we have only won 8 of our first 50 games but if you consider how our last 25 games compare to our first 25 you will see that we are making exemplary progress… in the first series of matches we won 2 drew 3 and lost 20, in the last sequence of matches we have won 6 drawn 7 and only lost 12, a distinct improvement’
‘steeeel rubbeeesh tho, eeets cos of theeees useless gobleeens weeee should neeever play weeeth them’ says Laz’pler
‘Unfortunately impossible my dear rat, quite impossible, for we would be a team of seven if we didn’t at least include them in our squad, and it would be quite impossible to win even with the quality of players we have. I do concur that our strength lays in the strength of our skaven players, Ber’anx particularly is shaping nicely into a powerful player.’
‘Eeen don’t forgeeet yourseelf bosss’ (‘yourseelf bosss’) ‘yeeeer reeeerly beeecomming a nasteee pleeeyer’ (‘nasteee pleeeyer’)
‘Quite, quite thankyou boys, thankyou. So, Devia, how would you suggest we move on further, perhaps how do we start winning more?’
‘Kick ‘em when they are down, boss, kick ‘um harder till they die’
‘So be it my little goblin, I shall make you chief creative boot placer, I want you to make sure all the other goblins on the team know how to place the boot as well as you do…. you may go… but if you are still alive I’d like you back when we have played another 25 games’
‘Cheers boss’ smiled Devia as he leaves, already planning what vindictive and unpleasant training tasks he was going to force his goblin team mates to do now he had a small modicum of seniority over them.

To all my opponents – thanks for 50 fun and memorable matches that have forged a group of pixels into living characters with personalities of their own, and to all my future opponents, good luck, have fun and watch out for the boot of Devia the chief creative boot placer.