Gisome Palin

“Run around,” he shouted.

“Run around.”

“Run around.”

Gisome Palin believed that football was a simple game and that consequently the best way of achieving perfection within that game was a simple approach.

He offered a single instruction to the young team he coached, repeated ad infinitum, shouted loudly from the touchline on the training ground, and during the game itself.

“Run around.”

“Run around.”

“Run around.”

“Run around.”

His team focused their efforts as instructed on their speed and fitness. As a result they became the fastest, fittest group of footballers in their league. They could run, run, run and run, fast and non-stop for the full ninety minutes, long into extra time if required.

In spite of their athleticism and speed, however, the team was absolutely hopeless at football, running mindlessly up an down the field, ball nowhere in sight, while the opposing team hogged the ball artlessly into the net time after time.

Reflecting on an unsatisfactory season, Gisome added a new instruction to his pre-existing strategy. His instruction changed thus.

“Run around, and kick the fucking ball.”

The addition of the new mantra would transform the fortunes of the team and the next season they won every game, their speed and fitness now combining with basic ball skills.

At this time of his success the national team were at a low ebb, having been once again  knocked out in the first round of the international tournament, and there was a vacant position for a new manager. Gisome was given the role.  His methods transformed the team, who became fitter, quicker, and came to dominate, covering the pitch in a simple, dominant way.   Within a year the team were defeating all-comers, finding their way into the latter stages of the world cup, then the final, then winning the final itself.  Four years later they won the world cup for a second time, and Gisome was granted ‘Diamond Geezer’ status by the country’s monarch.

It was around this time that a new government was elected. The new Prime Minister believed that great leadership applied across all areas of  management and therefore offered Gisome, the best manager in the country, the most important role, that of running the country’s military.

Gisome observed that the military’s strategy and techniques were dated, over-complicated and overly regimented.  He ripped up the army’s instruction manual, he scrapped the parades that had been the focus of military training then introduced a new regime, based on speed and fitness.   

“Run around,” his sergeants and commanders would shout.  "Run around."

A few years after Gisome’s army had become the fittest and fastest in the world. However, when the country found itself at war, the weaknesses of his approach became clear. They were heavily defeated in their first battle. Though they had speed and athleticism, the opposition focused on artlessly shooting at them. It was a bloodbath.

Gisome rethought his plan. The training manual was rewritten a second time.

“Run around, and shoot the fucking enemy,” his sergeants and commanders now shouted.

The addition of the new mantra would transform the fortunes of the military and the next battle was won easily, their speed and fitness now combining with basic military skill. They out-maneuvered and outran the enemy, surrounding them and soundly defeated them.

The battles were won and the war was won.

That war, and then the next.

In no time at all Gisome’s country came to dominate the world, and in a new era of prosperity the country grew wealthy and rich. The ambitious Prime Minister soon turned his attention elsewhere. With this world won, the PM looked into the beyond for his next ambition. Intergalactic travel.

His scientists built a ship capable of traveling to the stars, capable of boldly going where no human had been before.

There was only one man he could turn to to lead this exploration. Gisome was the man for the job. He took over as captain of the first starship, the Venture, whose mission was to explore new worlds.  He took with him a crew of 245 of the best scientists, technicians and engineers the world had ever produced.  They would be travelling to the stars, to the nearest solars system six light years away, then on, onwards into the beyond. 

The nature of space travel, of course, means that we will never know what became of Gisome and his crew of space explorers. This is the unfortunate nature of intergalactic travel, even were he to meet aliens on other worlds, he would be unable to return home to report his findings, or even to message the earth in any way.