“Terry Pratchett continues his pattern of taking something from the real world, twisting it to fit in the Discworld universe, and adding bits of wry British humor in Unseen Academicals.
This time, the subject in question is football (soccer to Americans). In this case, Ponder Stibbons, the only responsible academic at Unseen University (though even that is debatable) discovers that the faculty, in order to keep a certain flow of cash coming from a bequest, must compete in a football game every year. If they do not for a term longer than twenty years, they lose the bequest. Of course, it has now been twenty years since Unseen University fielded a team, and the game of football has devolved into a mix of ultimate fighting and cricket that only the lower class play.” (continued)
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