Gerbil World Cup HQ: Scotland vs. Wimbledon Common United
Underground, overground, wombling free
The Wombles started like a side that had already won. Orinoco surged down the left, Wellington read the game two passes ahead of everyone else on the pitch, and inside twenty minutes it was 3-0, Scotland’s defence bypassed so completely that Griselda wrote “women against gerbils, gerbils against Wombles” in her notes and immediately crossed it out as unhelpful.
Minute 22: GOAL, Wombles. 4-0. Bungo finished from close range, wheeled away in celebration — and then stopped dead, spotted a crisp packet by the corner flag, and jogged over mid-celebration to pick it up before rejoining her teammates, who were still waiting, patiently, for her to finish celebrating.
Minute 29: GOAL, Wombles. 5-0. Same again — Wellington scored, immediately noticed an abandoned drinks can near the touchline, and detoured to bin it before the restart, delaying kickoff by a full ninety seconds while the fourth official checked whether this was, technically, time-wasting or just very good manners.
Scotland pulled one back on the stroke of half-time, a scrappy header nobody defended because nobody could quite believe they were allowed to.
Second half. The pattern held, and then it didn’t. Orinoco scored a sixth, wheeled away, spotted a sweet wrapper, and this time was joined by three teammates who all decided, independently, that this was also a good moment to tidy the touchline. Scotland, watching five Wombles methodically litter-pick their own six-goal lead, scored twice more while nobody was looking.
Minute 68: 6-3. Madame Cholet, from the touchline, could be heard shouting something that translated, roughly, to “the recycling can wait,” which nobody on the pitch appeared to hear, or chose to.
Minute 75: Scotland’s fourth. The Wombles’ entire back line was fifteen yards away, bent double over a crushed juice carton, conducting what looked like a genuine debate about which bin it belonged in.
Minute 83: Scotland’s fifth. 6-5. Griselda, by now standing, shouted at the Wombles’ bench to “just leave the litter,” which Gwendoline transcribed for the bulletin and which several Wombles found so personally offensive they stopped picking litter for a full ninety seconds purely to look betrayed.
Minute 89: With the Wombles finally reorganised and pressing for a seventh to settle it, Wellington controlled the ball beautifully, turned, saw a single stray sweet wrapper six yards away, hesitated — visibly, agonisingly — and in that hesitation lost the ball to a Scotland midfielder who broke clean through and slotted home the equaliser. 6-6.
Extra time solved nothing. Penalties arrived with the Wombles still, by all appearances, slightly distracted by the general untidiness of the penalty area.
Scotland converted four straight. The Wombles missed their third when Bungo, walking up to take it, spotted an ice lolly stick by the spot, picked it up, pocketed it, and then sent the actual penalty miles over the bar, seemingly out of pure habit.
Scotland win on penalties.
Madame Cholet did not shout this time. She simply looked at her squad, now spotless pitch and all, and said, with enormous dignity, that “a tidy defeat is still a tidy pitch,” which nobody could really argue with.
Greta’s line appeared under the glass before the floodlights dimmed:
Wimbledon Common United — out, but the ground has never looked better. Scotland — through, somehow, again.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/scotland-vs-wimbledon-common-united