Monty Pythons Flying Football - LCFC

Imagine the scene. Monty Pythons all gathered round the table working on scripts for sketches for a new programme.

"I have an idea. You have this football match played on a freezing cold night in front of about 2,000 spectators. First we have a loony bloke dressed up in a furry suit hopping about the place. Then when the football gets underway, we have the team in red and white playing as if they are in blind-folds. Somehow they go a goal in front, but that is just to build tension for the rest of the sketch. Now this is where we go really Monty Python.

We turn the Reds goalkeeper into a baby seal so that when the ball goes near him he slides about on his stomach, clapping his flippers together until he pushes the ball out to one of the blokes in blue who passes the ball into the net and then he goes and kisses and hugs all the other blokes in blue. Just to bring out the feminine side for those that like that sort of thing, you understand. Builds a bit more tension.

Then we get the teams to change ends, right? Don't ask me why it justs seems a good idea okay"

Well then what happens, is we get the team in blue to run about and pass the ball to each other with the grace of ballerinas, but not actually doing much else, whilst the team in red run about as if they don't know where the ball is, flapping their arms and puffin' and blowin'.

We then get the "star" of the piece to come onto the field because one of his red team-mates pulls a fetlock. Well the star starts sprinting up and down the field with the ball glued to his boot. This panics the blue lot and they start running round in circles shouting and pointing at each other. The "star" then kicks the ball into the middle of the blues penalty area where we have this huge great bloke, built like a tank, in a red shirt who tries to kick the ball into the net but can only manage to hit the ball with all the power of a two-year old, in the wrong direction. We will then have this hapless bloke in blue, who has his boots on the wrong feet, with his back to his goal who decides to help the tank-like geezer out by booting the ball into his own net. Then it gets better.

We will have the "star" again galloping down the pitch like a stallion on heat. When he gets near to the blues goal he nutmegs one of the blue players, great word that nutmegs, just made it up, sounds really funny doesn't it? After the nutmeg (really do like that one) the "star" kicks the ball into the middle of the blue penalty area. The important thing here is that the ball is going nowhere near the onion-bag, love these words, another really funny term, almost as good as nutmeg, and then we put the whole sketch into slow motion. We will have a blue player with a bag on his head who will attempt to kick the ball. What will happen is that the ball will be kicked oh, so slowly towards the onion-bag. We will have a bloke in huge great gloves who should try and stop it but all he will do is stand and watch the ball slowly drift into the back of the onion-bag. At this point we will get all the extras who are making up the crowd, won't push us over budget because there will not be that many there, to start falling on the floor laughing fit to bust, jumping up and down and waving red and white scarves. For comic effect we will dress some of them up to look like the players. So that's it. A great sketch in my opinon".

"Well yes, but is it believable enough though? You know good comedy needs to have a touch of realism to it?"

"Yeah perhaps your right. I have another good idea about sheep that roost in trees and a farmer trying to make money out of it"

"Right then that is much more believable".

"Okay we will go with that one then"