NationStates • View topic - CAFA Cup 9: The Cyber Chase

(NOTE: I know this is a new nation and I hope this is allowed. This is merely an exercise for me to help regain my confidence in my ability to write, as well as an attempt for me to rediscover why I loved writing so much. -Hap)

KENSINGTON TOWN SOCCER CLUB

Full Nation Name: The Community of Beer League Footballers That Got Lost
Trigramme: BLF
Nickname: Officially: The Dogs; Unofficially: Those Idiots That Wandered Off That Plane
Team Colors: Red, Black and White

Info:
A group of beer league footballers from an Esportivan nation got on an airplane en route to another to play a casual game of football. There wasn't much at stake, just that the leaders of both teams were good friends in high school and drinking buddies in college. The two were more than excited to get together, have a few cold ones and watch their two respective teams do battle for 90 minutes, and then when it was done, they would all find a local bar and drink all of its beer. But there was a problem. On the flight over, both the pilot and copilot got massively disoriented. Several hours went by where the plane went in the wrong direction, but no one on the squad realized it. By the time it was all over, and by the time the pilots realized what was going on, they landed in a mysterious land - they didn't know what it was, but all they knew was they were in a region called "Anaia."

COACHING STAFF:
HEAD COACH/DIRECTOR: James Eaton
Jimmy Eaton, the director of Kensington Town Soccer Club and owner of Laughing Dog Bar and Grill, is disappointed. He was hoping he could have met his old friend Rodney Walters, his best friend in high school and college, and relived old times when they got thrown out of college bars for drinking way too much and for being much, much too loud when comparing football tactics. Jimmy was hoping he and Rodney would have remembered the time they pissed off a bartender something fierce when loudly singing the praises of the 4-4-2 formation to his face. All the bartender wanted to do was converse with the beautiful woman sitting next to them and pour her another beverage. Instead, he got some real deep talk about the tactics of football formations. Either way, Eaton is hopeful that, being in Anaia, he and his boys can find some good football to play and some even better cold beverages to drink.

ASSISTANT COACH: Tyler Swanson
GOALKEEPING COACH: Rocky Kemp
STYLE: +5

My opponent, if they RP first, may do the following:
Choose my goalscorers: Yes
Godmod scoring events: TG me first, or ping me on the NS Sports Discord, and we'll talk about it
RP injuries to my players: Yes, but TG me if you want to do something serious
Godmod injuries to my players: TG me first, or ping me on the NS Sports Discord, and we'll talk about it
Hand out yellow cards to my players: Yes
Hand out red cards to my players: TG me first, or ping me on the NS Sports Discord, and we'll talk about it
Godmod other events: Yes, but TG me first
RP Coronavirus-related events: No.

Most Likely to:
Score Goals: Spears, Downer, Webster
Take Set-Pieces: Webster, Downer, Stewart
Get into Card Trouble: Everyone

PLAYERS:

GOALKEEPERS

The two goalkeepers on the Kensington Town squad are perhaps the most intellectual of the bunch.
Jim Dash, a financial planner for a major accounting firm back home, has won the last 16 trivia nights at the local bar in a row, even in spite of Triviamaster Dave Boyd's attempts to make things more difficult by bringing in much more obscure and esoteric topics such as "Parliamentary Procedures of Rushmori Nations, 1965-1980" and "World Grand Prix Champinship Reject Drivers, Seasons 1-5". Turns out Dash knows those like the back of his hand.

Zeke Moore, meanwhile, is the go-to when it comes to different scotch whiskies - even being able to tell the difference between the barrels that the whiskies were aged in. So even the bartenders at the local bar come up to him and ask what's the difference between one bottle of scotch or the other. Away from the bar and the pitch, Zeke has made that passion into his occupation, working as a salesman for a local whiskey company.

DEFENsem*n

#5 - GAEL HICKS | Centerback | Age: 34 | Kicks: Right
Physicality: Very High | Random Fact: Takes "The Number of Violence" too seriously | On-Field Personality: Asshole
The four starting defensem*n on the Kensington Town team have some very interesting - and quirky - tastes.

Randy Russell, for instance, made those quirky tastes well known on a Saturday evening at the bar when he put on some extremely obscene tunes that angered a local church women's group that had come by for lunch. Jimmy Eaton was presented with two choices: Either Randy is not allowed within 20 feet of the jukebox or he gets a lawsuit for obscenity. Away from the field, Russell has been pulled over by police at least 10 times for having his car radio up too loud - and for having some of those real disgusting songs playing at full blast. Several months ago, he appeared on one of those police videos shows real popular in his home country - for playing one of those songs at full blast near a local middle school.

On a Friday night a few months ago, Johnny Carter, seeing a news story involving the local parliament arguing over some piece of obscure-ass legislation involving a city several hundred miles from them. Carter went on a tangent to some of his fellow barflies explaining - in very painfully esoteric terms - why the procedure was not being followed right, why point of order was not being met or whatever, and why - damn it, Joyner, taking the parliamentary mace, wrapping it in barbed wire, setting it on fire and thrashing it over someone's head is grounds to get expelled from parliament permanently, even if it's a "worked" parliamentary mace as you claim it is. Either way, the rest of the barflies were much more interested in Freddy Joyner's implementation of professional wrestling in parliament than what Johnny was saying.

Bruce "Elf Ears" Tatum got his name for a Sunday jaunt in the bar. With heavy rains all over the area, their field was a sloggy, muddy mess and the game between Kensington Town and rival Sharpsburg Rovers was called off. So both teams went to Laughing Dog Bar, had way too much to drink, argued over the NSSCRA race being aired on the televisions, and somewhere, somehow, a pair of elf ears were produced. Bruce Tatum put them on and as he puts it, "that's the last thing I remember." Others in the bar recall him drinking way too much, blowing chunks and getting sent outside, where he passed out in a driving rainstorm.

Gael Hicks became a fan of Hapiloppian football player Nathan Ellis years ago, when, on a whim, he turned on a World Cup 84 qualifying match between Hapilopper and Vdara. It was in that game where Ellis clotheslined Vdaran footballer Alexis Fotellis and made quite an ass out of himself. Since then, Hicks decided that, in his beer league games of his own, he'd do what Ellis did. He started wearing Number Five - which in Hapiloppian football is considered "the number of violence" and he started playing like Ellis. But the thing is, the other teams didn't like it, and neither did local law enforcement, who hilariously arrested Hicks after he tried doing his Nathan Ellis routine on a beer league team consisting of local police officers.

The bench defenders are just as quirky as the starting ones, and have become famous within the Kensington area - some for good reasons, and others for reasons you'd rather not think about.

Have you ever turned on the 6 o'clock news and wondered where in the hell the reporters found some of these goobers they talk to? Elwood Davis has jokingly called himself a "professional idiot on the street" for his numerous appearances on the local news - oftentimes being dressed up in a bathrobe and an old baseball hat, giving his take on the exploding gas station across the street or the moron that tried stealing an ambulance on the corner of the road he was on. And every time it happens, Elwood will come back to Laughing Dog that day and get heckled by his fellow barflies for his latest, ludicrous take on the news of the day. It has happened at least 10 times in the last year, even as local news networks seemingly forget who they're talking to.

Freddy Joyner is the resident professional wrestling fanatic of the Laughing Dog crew - to the delight and chagrin of his fellow barflies. Every Monday and Wednesday, he insists on the bar putting on the pro wrestling shows, and he'll go on and on about why this pro wrestling storyline is working and why this pro wrestling executive is a dunderheaded goober because of his insistence on wearing a neck brace in the middle of a professional sports draft. Othertimes, he'll just yell at the TV to tell a pro wrestler to get a table and set it on fire. Joyner has been adored by his fellow barflies for things such as sparing them the boredom of esoteric-ass parliamentary talk, and chastized for attempting to perform pro wrestling maneuvers on them, such as one instance when he offered Anthony Donis $20 "to see what Suplex City is like."

Darrell Hawkins, meanwhile, really enjoys cooking. The only reason he doesn't go behind the bar and make food for his fellow barflies is that there are people employed to make that food and he doesn't want to take away from their livelihood. Instead, he'll go home and make his own food. His favorite dishes include what he calls "Thunderchicken 65" - a spicier version of a Chicken 65 dish - and his own tuna casserole, which he considers his party piece that he'll make for girls he's seeing and for barflies that come over to his place when they need a place to crash.

Eddie Deacon is a complete idiot. He's the kind of guy that does stupid things for money - and we mean, really, REALLY stupid things. Things like breathing fire for a $5 bet, things like blowing up a toilet at Laughing Dog for a $20 bet (something that netted him a six-month ban from the bar when Jimmy Eaton saw the damage) and punching out a referee to help a friend win a bet. Eddie had collided with another player from Green Street Club in the 28th minute of a match - a cynical challenge, maybe a little excessive, but it was there. And when the referee started breaking the two apart, Eddie recalled two of his friends getting into an argument over what would happen if a player punched a referee, and a bet was placed. So Eddie figured he'd resolve the bet and decked the referee. He was given a straight red and a two match suspension. He was lucky Jimmy Eaton didn't stick a boot up his ass afterwards.

MIDFIELDERS

The midfielders on the Kensington Town squad have gotten themselves into some level of trouble for a variety of reasons.

Zack Webster, for starters, has managed to ruin no less than three dates he has brought to Laughing Dog after his date will inevitably ask him "so, what are you interested in?" Webster will respond, inevitably, with his very encyclopedic - and very boring - knowledge of televion station signoffs from the 1970s and 1980s. Occasionally, one of his fellow barflies will overhear this, bring some of their friends in and when Webster finishes his spiel, they'll chime in by giving their rendition of the most annoying sound in the world. Inevitably, the date has decided she's had enough and walks away - oftentimes before the food even arrives. Webster works at a local TV station in the mornings, so at least his coworkers have that same interest - we hope.

Anthony Donis, meanwhile, has just recently recovered from a shoulder injury that came after Freddy Joyner offered him $20 to see "what Suplex City is like." Donis is obviously a complete idiot because Joyner takes pro wrestling way too seriously. Either way, Donis accepted the offer, Joyner picked him up and gave him a vicious belly-to-back Hapiloppian suplex that slammed him into the bar itself, breaking his shoulder. Donis missed three months of action while Joyner was suspended two matches for "aggravated dipsh*ttery," as Jimmy Eaton put it. The bar at Laughing Dog, meanwhile, was visibly dented from the suplex. Jimmy decided not to have it fixed "to show everyone what kind of morons I have frequenting my establishment."

"God damn it, Roger, you again?" The Kensington Town Police know Roger Goetz a little too well. He's not a violent person and he doesn't do anything too bad. His problem is he tends to stumble home from Laughing Dog a little too often after having a little too many cold ones with his friends. Roger has been arrested no less than five dozen times for public drunkenness and criminal stupidity - including one time when he got sick and blew chunks on a side of a fast food restaurant not far from his apartment. His mugshots have appeared on the walls of Laughing Dog as Kensington Town Police have let Jimmy Eaton know of one of their more overserved customers. Jimmy laughs it off - Roger doesn't get in a car and drive, he doesn't do anything that endangers the health of anyone else or himself, he just enjoys drinking, and he'll walk home instead.

On a Saturday night in the offseason, Jimmy Clifford was playing with the arcade machine near the back of Laughing Dog and was getting a little frustrated with how he was doing. To make matters worse, it seemed like the arcade machine was taunting him for how poorly he was doing. There was a line of people waiting to play on the arcade machine and they were getting frustrated. Finally, Jimmy lost his cool, first screaming bloody murder at this inanimate arcade machine that had mocked him for the last time, then grabbing a sledgehammer that, for some reason, was situated off to the side. Jimmy started whaling away at the arcade machine before eventually, an impact from the sledgehammer caused the arcade machine to blow up, sending shrapnel flying in all directions, causing the fire alarm to go off and leading Jimmy Eaton to explain to firefighters that no, Laughing Dog was not on fire, some dipsh*t just blew up the arcade machine in a fit of white-hot rage.

Kensington Town has two backup midfielders, and by comparison to the starters, don't really do much to get in trouble, but they do have their moments.

This past Halloween, Kenny Stewart, who is 5'10", decided he wanted to dress up like Clarissa Alanis Star from the wonderful world of Valentine Z. This included dying his skin blue and getting stilts so he could appear to be comically large. Unfortunately, Kenny didn't consider the fact that the front door of Laughing Dog didn't take giant Valentians into consideration, nor did he consider his balance when walking on stilts. So as he walked out to Laughing Dog, he realized he couldn't get through the front door, dressed up as Clarissa Alanis Star, and a 5'10" big blue robot just wasn't going to cut it. He tried crawling through the door and failed, before finally giving up. But as he got back up, he slipped a bit and busted his ass as he fell onto the sidewalk, nearly taking out an old lady walking by. For whatever reason, that old lady now has a fear of fat morons dressed up as Valentians.

A few weeks after Kenny Stewart busted his ass, it was karaoke night at Laughing Dog. Rudy Royal, figuring he'd act on a goofball impulse, meandered out to the stage and asked to take a soulful funky pop hit that had just come out. He gave the karaoke operator a mischievious look, looked at the lyrics and started singing it like a thrash metal hit, screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs. It got everyone's attention and was worth quite a few laughs and a lot of cheers. But the next day when he showed up to his job as an advertising sales rep for the local newspaper, everyone wondered what happened to his voice. Rudy had to explain that, yes, he had blown it out, no, he wasn't watching sports on television, and yes, after a coworker played a video that had been posted to twii.tur, he had blown his voice out doing karaoke.

FORWARDS

The two starting forwards can score a lot of goals and piss a lot of people off. Sometimes at the same time.

Chris Spears is lucky someone didn't shoot him. While on a weekend visit to Hapilopper City, he spotted a political rally featuring Hapiloppian President William Mathis. Spears, who is apolitical and considers all politicians to be corrupt douchenozzles, opened the window of his 6th floor hotel room, got out a megaphone and shouted "HEY! CHECK THIS OUT!" As Mathis and about 3,000 people turned around looked, Spears pulled down his pants and hung his bare ass out the window. Nobody could restore order as Spears danced his bare ass out the hotel window. Mathis, meanwhile, sensing that people in Hapilopper do this sort of dumb stuff all the time, couldn't help but crack up.

While Chris Spears is mooning heads of state, Charlie Downer is going for his seventh plate at the local all-you-can-eat buffet. Downer has one of the best metabolisms of any footballer, professional or amateur - in the area, and loves to eat lots of food. In the process, he has tested the extent of these restaurants' "all you can eat" policy, and on three occasions, he has shown that "all you can eat" doesn't really mean "literally all you can eat," as managers of these restaurants have come up to him and asked him to please leave because while he's eating all he can eat, they can't keep up with the demand and the demand of other customers.

The two backup strikers have their own quirks, some good and some really, really stupid.

For the last 20 years, Matthew Haywood has been prohibited from renting cars back home following a well-publicized incident where he, pissed off at a fellow motorist, smashed into his rear bumper. That fellow motorist pulled up alongside him and doorslammed him. So rather than just exchange insurance details, apologize for their misdeeds and move on, these two idiots turned their vehicles into weapons and the highway as their own personal battleground. By the time it was over, Haywood's car was demolished, smoking and may have been on fire. The other guy's car was demolished as well, not to mention the three other people that got caught up in it. Punches were thrown, police got involved and by the time it was over, the rental car agency was even angrier than the guy that Haywood rear-ended.

Ted Ingram is a steakmaster. He and his friends - all of whom have been friends since college - get together once a week on a Friday night, get some steaks, whiskey and cigars and enjoy the evening. They'll get a bad movie from the 80s, watch that and enjoy their steaks. Many of his friends are also regulars at Laughing Dog, and they'll come along for the Sunday games as well, but then question why Ingram doesn't get much playing time. The reality is, Ingram is just as happy sitting on the bench and enjoying himself as he is anything else.

NationStates • View topic - CAFA Cup 9: The Cyber Chase - (2024)