Robotorangers 3 v 2 Arsebot
After extra time.
By Thinkbot, Junior Trainee Robofoot Correspondent.
Manchester turned to red, white and blue on Saturday as a partially kilted crowd of 80,000 Picts and Londoners descended from opposite directions on the seemingly permanently rain-sodden city to witness the 37th RA Cup Final between Robotorangers and Arsebot. The gurgling skirl of wet bagpipes intermingled horribly with damp people complaining about soggy Eccles cakes in home county accents. But after a few pints of Bottingtons everyone cheered up despite the inevitable collapse in the quality of bagpipe playing. With many supporters carrying the flags of St Andrew or St George (which fortuitously, to the relief of some of the less bright players who may have otherwise had difficulty locating their supporters, coincided with the team colours), the spice of ancient national rivalries added to the occasion.
Arsebot arrived at the final confident they would put their name on the trophy for the fifth time having beaten Bottenham Hotbots in a 5-4 quarter final thriller, followed by a majestic 5-1 trashing of Manchester Droids in the semi.
Robotorangers on the other hand were feeling the pressure having so far failed to win the R A Cup in 36 attempts. Unlike their fiercest rivals Celbotic, who Robotorangers beat 2-1 in a tense Old Firm clash before outlasting Robobolton to win the so-called ‘robobo-roboto’ semi-final 3-2 in extra time.
Meanwhile, in Portishead, I had joined GAT, Gerald, Mike, Opal, Fudge, Chester, Tiger, BEM, and Helen (who was coincidentally reading in the same room) in front of the big screen. The game got off to a less than enthralling error-ridden start as the jangled nerves of players and dugout engineers settled down. Mike lost interest in the 3rd minute and started annoying Fudge and Chester who then started running around underneath the screen leading to a sharpish outburst from GAT along the lines of ‘If you don’t want to watch then go and find something else to do!’ to which Helen replied without even looking up ‘Please don’t shout at the children dear.’ Gerald produced a yellow card that he waved dramatically at GAT, Mike, Fudge and Chester which only resulted in furious Toybot protests ‘What for?’ ‘Making mother talk during the Cup Final’ turned out to be the entirely reasonable offence. By this time GAT was on the brink of thumping someone but limited himself to making Mike sit next to him and threatening to turn off the Toybots.
Then, in the 20th minute, just as we seemed destined for an afternoon of soporific boredom, the central midfield Arsebot Footbot suffered some sort of controlware error that sent it sprinting towards one of the corner flags. The Robotorangers fans in the front rows looked on the verge of panic as the Footbot pelted towards them, but on reaching the corner flag it put out one arm, grabbed the flag pole and started running round in circles. In spite of furious protests from the Arsebot bench that the Footbot was clearly suffering from ‘a head injury’ the referee did not stop the game and a mixed robo-human Robotorangers move exploited the gap in midfield to set up McSpludge for the opening goal – a thunderdous net bulging drive off his left kneecap from 12 inches.
Then the fun really started as the Arsebot engineers gathered around the madly gyrating Footbot wondering what to do. The wet ground was beginning to cut up and the Footbot was slowly sinking in a quagmire getting slower and slower as his leg servos struggled to overcome the waves of mud covering its feet. Finally a quick-thinking Arsebot engineer grabbed a St Andrew’s cross from a supporter and rammed it between the Footbot’s legs bringing it down into the mud with a big splash that coated referee, players, coaches, engineers and a few rows of jeering Robotorangers fans with liquid mud. For a frozen moment it looked like a scene made from pure chocolate. Eventually it was all sorted out and the muddy Footbot was unceremoniously tied up and dumped on the running track and replaced by the Arsebot spare.
So, 1-0 to Robotorangers at half time and the instant the whistle blew an unseemly human scramble developed to be first to the downstairs loo. Opal won (she can be vicious when needs must) and Mike contrived to lock himself under the stairs. With the humans out of the way, the Toybots changed the interactive-channel to watch live coverage of the groundbots, flailing like wildebeest crossing a river trying to repair the flooded mudbath around the corner flag. Over this the commentator informed them that the first half Arsebot Fotboot corner flag incident had been caused by software, specifically a bug-ridden new-for-the-final ‘goal celebration’ sub-routine.
The second half leapt forth into furious ineptitude for 30 minutes whereupon the phone went. Helen answered and promptly handed it to GAT, ‘It’s your mother.’ GAT made an anguished face at Helen and put the game into digi-pause. This lead to Gerald producing a red card for GAT and angry gestures were exchanged. It took 10 minutes for GAT to get rid of her, and then an agonising 5 more for everyone to regather during which all sorts of shouts such as ‘Go on! Go on! Yes! Yes! Yes!’ could be heard from the house next door. ‘Blast blast blast!’ yelled GAT, ‘What are we missing?’ and restarted the game from the point they’d stopped. Only it wasn’t the game - it was some dreadful archaeology programme about scraps of leather and rusty nails found in some god-forsaken trench. GAT must have flicked the wrong button in his haste to pause the game. At that exact moment a network message appeared on the screen from one of Gerald’s pals ‘Wow! 2-2, wasn’t that incredible?’ GAT put his hands to his head, started growling and hit the ‘back to real time’ option only to hear the hysterical commentator, ‘ – surely the most incredible 15 minutes of Robofoot in the history of the RA Cup! And there’s the final whistle! Wow!’ Scenes of rows and rows of excited fans filled the screen while the players prepared for extra time and the engineers plugged laptops into their Footbots and started tapping away at the keyboards. GAT was beside himself repeating, ‘I don’t believe this is happening to me’ over and over again.
Well, if the last 15 minutes of normal time was one of the most incredible of all time, then the two 15 minutes periods of extra time turned out to be amongst the most dreadful. GAT downed 2 cans of beer in the first 10 minutes alone and started getting morose and aggressive, only to be told be Helen, ‘It’s only a game, don’t be so silly.’ With a couple of minutes to go one of the Arsebot Footbot defenders suffered a hip bearing failure and took out McSpludge who was fannying around going nowhere at the edge of the area. A pathetic penalty but the ref apparently had no choice according to Gerald. McSpludge picked himself up, scuffed home the penalty to give Robotorangers their first R A Cup triumph at the 37th attempt and sent 35,000 Scotsmen happily back north.