With the start of the season quickly approaching, the team gathered in the Theatre of Breams to hear from the coaching team about what the Scoundrels would be spending their money on this year. The hubbub subsided as the coach climbed onto the picnic table that had been erected in the middle of the pitch.

"I'd like to announce" he wheezed, "that following negotiations with Cabalvision over the broadcasting rights, we are going to ..."

"Buy hats for everyone on the team?!" Lonely Nigel yelled, incapable of containing his excitement any more.

"What kind of hats?" Fathand and Cowpuncher chorused. Standing beside the coach's table, Spindizzee Tick Tock tried to say something, but the gag he had to always wear muffled the response to the point of inaudibility.

"He said trilbies!" Clumpy shouted with glee.

"Not trilbies, Homburgs!" Legneck was so excited that he began to bounce up and down on his pogo stick, sailing high above his team mates.

"No, deerstalkers!" Shady Flimface had quite the Sherlock Holmes fixation since he spent a week in the hospital reading detective novels.

"Top hats!" cried Fizz-Whizz, getting a bit too excited.

After a sharp intake of breath, the rest of the team erupted in screams of rage that gradually devolved into angrily chanting "no tall hats! no tall hats!" The scars of that first game and Vegemite Disaster's untimely death had yet to heal. The rookie bombardier was pelted with the rotten fruit that had shown up around the Theatre of Breams after another scurvy scare.

"It's not trilbies or Homburgs or deerstalkers" the coach yelled at them, several blood vessels bursting in his nose. "There's no new hats for you at all, you useless mob of gimlets!"

"Do I get ... a new nightie?" rumbled a deep, baritone voice.

"No, Ladyshape, you don't get a new nightie."

"What about bowler hats?" Lonely Nigel piped up again. "My brother Derek, he works down the market, said he could get us a good deal if we made a bulk order of bowlers and he'd even give us some of those anti-macaroon scars."

"For the last time, there will be no new hats. And Nigel, you mean antimacassars. And you don't need one of those either, because you have a perfectly polished hairless head that upholstery needs no protention from. Avo, give me that chainsaw. If you clowns request one more kind of hat, I'll chop your ruddy heads off."

A hush dropped over the team as they considered what the coach had just said. Legneck finally stopped bouncing, and stared at the ground. There was a long, and ominous pause. At last, Lonely Nigel cleared his throat to ask the single word: "Clowns?"

"Clowns?" echoed Quack Nostrum.

Fructose Overdose climbed on top of Ladyshape so he could get the attention of the others. "Lads, he's saying we're going to the circus!" The team began to cheer with glee. "We're going to the circus! We're going to the circus! We're going to eat the clowns! We're going to the circus! We're going to - "

"No circus! No hats! No nightie! And before you even start, Manshape, you're not getting a new copy of Top Gear magazine. One, you're too young to drive a car, two, cars and printed mass-market magazines about them are woefully anachronistic in the cod-Tolkein milieu in which we exist, and three -"

"Cod! He said cod! There's fresh fish for Friday!"

"Enough!" The coach revved Smash Toast's chainsaw. "There's no circus. No hats. No nightie. No Top Gear magazine. No fresh fish on Friday. There's never fresh fish on Friday."

"Then what is there, coach?"

"There's a redundancy payment for Lonely Nigella, Slinky Wonderbread and Twelve Stone Theresa."

A hush rippled across the team, followed by confused murmuring.

"Boss?" piped up Lonely Nigel.

"Yes?"

"Those are our cheerleaders, right?"

"Yes, Nigel."

"What about Gloomy Gertrude and Bertha Bingo Wing?"

"They're staying. We had to let the others go."

"So if we're spending all the Cabalvision money on redunderation payments to the girls ..."

"Yes, Nigel?"

"... how are we going to afford new hats?"