Once upon a time, not so far away in Footy Land, lived a little ginger-haired boy, who yearned to be included in the oh so popular footy games held every day at 4 o'clock on the village green.

Each afternoon, he watched patiently from the sidelines, a ball tucked under his arm and ginger locks pasted to his freckled forehead, waiting for his name to be called. Day in and day out, he watched the games go by, longing for his chance to prove he belonged, as the local footy bullies teased him.

"Carrot Top!"

"Goldie Locks!"

"Ginger @$#*&*^%!" they would yell.

But his resolve held strong that his chance would come... and come it would.

It was an unusually hot summer's day in Footy Land when the snaggle-toothed bully decided it was time for our boy to play.

"This should be fun," snickered the brazen bully. "We'll knock this pitiful, orange-haired, waste-of-time around before sitting down for our evening meal of jellied eelsand fish-and-chips."

The game began. Foul after foul, elbow after elbow, crushing knee after crushing knee collided into our little ginger lamb. Enduring the pain and humiliation of it all, he dug in and played on.

Then, the moment he had been waiting for, the ultimate challenge stood before him... a one-on-one with the nastiest bully of them all. Twenty players watched as the rain continued to pour, with mud up to their ankles, the defender and attacker frozen in time.

Our hero stood his ground. His defensive position perfect - knees bent, angled stance, balance right on - as he braced for the defining moment.

The bully began his approach first - step over here, pull-back there, hips swaying, sweating fists clenched, speed unstoppable.

"One final move to rid his Ginger @$#*&*^% from this >pitch forever!" grunted the bully as he made his move, then quickly cut to the left.

Uh, oh. Ginger fell for the fake out! In a desperate attempt to recover, one leg buckled and the other instinctively moved to brace the awkward fall. His hips and wet bum slid from under him as he descended to the sloppy turf.

"Got 'im now!" hissed the bully.

With legs and arms failing wildly, Ginger could feel his footy world slipping out from under him. Then the inexplicable happened.

Cutting across the grain, grinning profusely and trailing a vulnerable tibia/fibula combo, the bully suddenly felt a sickening blow. Sounds of cracking timber shuddered across the village green. Tumbling in the muck, leg broke in two, the defeated bully had run into and finally succumbed to elevated, high-density polyurethane.

Ginger smiled an inner smile as he looked in awe at this accidental tackle. Ambulance sirens blaring, our ginger-haired hero picked up his ball, weary from victory and oblivious to the unexpected cheers - STUDS UP! was born.