Lower Wombley Sports Club Installs Wi-Fi That Only Works For Goalposts
The club says its new network can stream matches directly into wooden objects, provided nobody asks it to connect a phone.
LOWER WOMBLEY, The Lower Wombley Recreational Sports Club has installed a wireless network that will not connect to a single electronic device. Goalposts receive perfect internet access. So do corner flags and one bench with an unusually high opinion of itself. The system, called Netball, was unveiled Tuesday beside the miniature football pitch after engineers found routers respond better when placed inside a whistle.
The club’s technology committee said it wanted to modernise local sport by removing screens from sport altogether. Chairwoman Marnie Quibble, now Director of Invisible Infrastructure, said spectators will soon browse websites through nearby cones. The cones, she added, will not say what they have read.
Early tests went well enough. A goalpost downloaded 14,000 pages of weather information, then lost interest after finding a picture of a cloud. The left corner flag reached 900 miles per hour. Its counterpart stayed offline after declining the terms and conditions, which had been presented in a small but firm box.
“The goalposts are online, but they refuse to discuss what they have seen.”
The equipment has now spread to training. The junior squad has been asked to extend the network by carrying small, unlicensed satellites around the pitch during warm-ups. They have also been told not to stare at them. The satellites resemble potatoes and become legally recognised as moons whenever somebody says “bandwidth”.
A spokesperson for the club’s Department of Digital Sporting Objects, Orson Vellum, said the system will eventually let the scoreboard receive emotional support from the internet. “At present it can only display the number seven and a warning that the number seven is feeling watched,” he said from behind a curtain marked Technical Support.
There have been minor difficulties. The changing-room mirror connected at once and subscribed to 36 newsletters. A shelf in the boot room began forwarding every message to a lighthouse somewhere below the pitch. Several footballs also started buffering during drills, then rolled away whenever anyone asked them to refresh.
Committee treasurer Pippa Sprocket said the project remains financially sound. The network was paid for with a coupon, three buttons and a promise to mention it in the local paper. A mobile app is due next month, assuming the goalposts can settle on a password. The bench still says it invented the internet.