“Chapter 5

"What's this?" Coach Robsson asked. They had arrived at the venue for their next game, only to find that two other teams were already warming up on the field. "I thought you said we were playing the dark elves."
"That's right," Ebeneezer confirmed, checking his schedule. "BepUnderdark. Coached by giusedav."
"So why are there a bunch of beastmen in my changing room?"
"Good question," Ebeneezer said, nodding wisely, but apparently not intending to do anything by way of finding the answer.
Coach Robsson gave him a boot up the backside. "Well go sort it out."

Five minutes later, the Geezer was back, wringing his hands and crouching defensively, and making sure he didn't get within arm's reach of his coach. This doesn't look good, Robsson thought.
"Slight misunderstanding," Ebeneezer explained, as fast as he could get the words out. "This is the Northside pitch, and our match is on the Southside pitch, across the village. They have two Bloodbowl pitches, which I know is a bit surprising for such a small village, but there you go, that's just the way it is. Anyway, off we go, it's just over there." He motioned to a flat green area and set off quickly towards it. Robsson grabbed him by the collar as he sped past.
"You look nervous," he said. "What are you not telling me, Geezer?"
"I promise it's not my fault," Ebeneezer burst out. "I had a signed contract and everything. It was all planned, and I definitely have the right day and this is the right place and the fans are here and the referees and everything and please don't hit me with anything or kick me in the fundamentals or make me wear the coach's seat on my head...again, but the fact is we're not playing the dark elves. We've been matched with one of the coach's other teams and it just so happens it's...skaven."

Skaven. Robsson hated the word, ever since that match a couple of weeks back, when a group of assassins had disguised themselves as Bloodbowl players and caused mayhem within the ranks of Da Hui, killing Skabbadabbadu, his prize werewolf, along with some other guy whose name he couldn't remember at the moment, and winning the game, and stealing most of their winnings. Now here they were, matched up against the little devils once more. And today was likely to be even worse. Not only was he still a wolf down, but today's bunch of vermin had brought along a rat ogre!


* * *


"Well," he said, already feeling the weight of another painful loss pressing down on him. "Let's get it over and done with."
"Can't," replied the typically taciturn dwarven referee. "Need the other coach for the coin toss."
"Well where is he?"
"Dunno. Don't care. But we ain't startin' without him."
Robsson looked around. There were plenty of local fans, and there were definitely eleven players, but no coach. Hope began to claw its way slowly up through Robsson's doom and gloom. "Maybe they'll have to forfeit the game."
"No," the dwarf announced. "Here he is."
"Damn," Robsson muttered to himself.
A short, flustered-looking specimen came sprinting up from the direction of the village. "Heads!" he screamed as he came to a stumbling halt.
"Heads it is," the referee announced.
"Great," the man said, then turned to his team and bellowed across at them. "We're receiving. You know what to do. I'll be back in a bit." And with that he set off agin in the direction of the village.

As it turned out, his players clearly didn't know what to do. Well, to be more accurate, they all knew what to do, but none of it seemed to depend on what anyone else was doing. The gutter runners ran the sidelines until they were within easy reach of Da Hui's endzone, then stopped and waited for the pass. The rat ogre was happy enough to hit anything that was standing up in front of him, and then hit them again if they refused to fall over. In fact, no sooner had the match begun than Snjfrntyg took a pair of claws to the chest and was carted off to the first aid tent.
"It's fine," he called out from the stretcher. "I've got a spare one."
"A spare what?" Robsson asked, but there was no reply.
But the rest of the rats seemed reluctant to commit to anything. They hung back, protecting their thrower, and he hung back, protecting himself. This left the gutter runners exposed, and Robsson was pleased to see his team seemed to know exactly what to do with them. One went down, then another, and still the thrower held back, the ball well and truly attached to his hand.

"Throw it!" Coach giusedav shouted, suddenly appearing on the far side of the pitch. He was sweating and gasping for breath. "No wait. Don't throw it! The rest of you get downfield first. No wait, some of you get downfield, the rest of you protect Motty." And then he was gone again.
"What is going on?" Coach Robsson asked, but actually he didn't care. As long as the skaven were unsure of what to do, he stood a better chance of getting some of them off the pitch before the second half.

Time was running out. Motty, the skaven thrower, looked downfield for a target but there were none. Kornelius and Celandril were holding position, preventing the gutter runners from getting to their feet. Meanwhile, Number Eight had led a push downfield, ably supported by both ghouls, Ivan the Terribly and all the zombies except Leroy, one of the journeymen they'd dug up that morning. His job was to stand next to the rat ogre and get hit, again and again, thereby preventing the vicious monster from slicing into anyone more important. He was doing his job admirably.

Suddenly Ivan saw an opening. He darted in and caught Motty's throwing arm just as he pulled it back - either to finally make a pass, or else to signal to the rest of the rats to pull back into another defensive position slightly closer to his own endzone. Either way the ball came loose. Tobias scooped it up and ran it in.

1-0 at the half.

"Not much I can say to you," Robsson told his players during their half-time pep talk. "You're all doing great. Your blocking is solid, you're controlling the field well, you're not even getting hit that much." He looked across at Sanjfrntyg who smiled and gave him the thumbs up, "Good work. Keep it up." As half-time talks went, that was about the shortest he'd ever given. If he was being honest though, he was still a little nervous. Rats weren't usually this easy and he suspected Coach giusedav still had a trick or two to pull out of the bag. The question was, why did he seem to keep his bag hidden back in the village. All this running up and down was clearly taking it out of the poor guy.

The undead were set to receive. The skaven were milling around on the sidelines. The dwarf referee was scowling and absentmindedly kicking the back of one of Number Eight's legs. Fortunately, the golem didn't seem to notice.
"Where's he got to now?" the referee demanded. The rats looked at each other and shrugged. Robsson looked at the referee and shrugged. The fans were becoming restless. Time passed. And then finally Coach giusedav staggered into view. He was drenched in sweat, his robes were muddy, and someone appeared to have sprayed him with arterial blood. He collapsed down by his dugout, waved a few times and muttered something to his players. Finally, they took to the field.

The dwarf blew the whistle. The skaven kicked the ball high into the air, and Coach giusedav clambered to his feet and wobbled his way back down to the village. Is he drunk, Robsson wondered. Did he get mugged? And if so, why is he going back for more? But he put these thoughts out of his mind. He had more important things to think about.

Tobias fielded the kick and ran it downfield, allowing the rest of the team to push open a corridor for him through the ranks of the skaven. The big rat ogre was up to his usual tricks, but so was Leroy, this time cleverly leading him away from the action. The rest of the rats seemed unsure what to do. The gutter runners knew what was expected of them on offence, but on defence they were a bit vague, and with no coach to guide them, they just got themselves in the way and managed to get hit quite a bit. Tobias scored without a single paw being laid on him.

Ebeneezer sauntered over while the teams were re-setting.
"Want to know what's going on?" he asked.
'"What?"
"It appears Coach giusedav is trying to play two matches at the same time. The dark elves down on the lower pitch are also his and he's trying to divide his time between both games. Unsuccessfully, it seems."
"The other game not going so well either, I take it?"
"Well to be fair, he's not losing," Ebeneezer said. "Except players. It's a bloodbath down there, and the chaos lot are loving every minute of it - even though half the corpses are theirs. How are things up here?"
"Comfortable," Robsson replied. "And for the record, I'm happy we ended up with the rats. Everything's going...dammit!"
One of the gutter runners had slipped through the defence. Motty had the ball again, but this time he'd made it over the halfway line and he went for the throw. It was a beauty. If Motty had been on his team, Robsson would have been proud of him. But he wasn't, so he wasn't. And there, right in the endzone, with no one anywhere near, the gutter runner fumbled the catch and it dropped down beside him with a neat little spin. Kornelius made sure there was no chance he was going to be in a position to pick it up again. And then it was back down the length of the field once more. Celandril took the ball, handed off to Tobias who could have run it in for the hat-trick but chose to let Silas do the honours instead. And on the way, Number Eight accidentally killed one of the poor linerats who - with a little help from Ebeneezer - immediately picked himself up and volunteered to join the winning side for the rest of the game.

3-0, no injuries, and a free zombie thrown in for good measure. A good day's work. Coach Robsson was keen to head off and celebrate by counting his winnings, but duty called. It was traditional to shake hands - or tentacles, or paws, or whatever - with the opposing coach at the end of a match, so Robsson set off across the field to find him. But perhaps unsurprisingly, Coach giusedav was nowhere to be found.”