Winchester College football, also known as Winkies, is a code of football played at Winchester College. Its rules make it somewhat resemble rugby football but with a round football and little handling of the ball. It was once played in South Africa, but is now restricted to the community directly connected to Winchester College. The game's season is January–March, the second term of the academic year. It developed from an unstructured street game of the 17th century into a standardised sport by the early 19th century. This was first played on the top of St. Catherine's Hill with a line of junior boys down each side to keep the ball from rolling away. The game was moved to the College's playing fields, and the lines of boys were replaced with netting.
The game somewhat resembles Rugby football, as players can kick the ball or run with it.[1] Tatler quotes a pupil's description of it as "our combination of football and rugby, likened to an English bulldog playing with a ball".[2] The Financial Times commented that the game could substitute for the Ancient Greek game of Pankration, but that a "Kasparov-like mind" was necessary to cope with the ever-changing rules.[3] The aim of the game is to kick the ball (an over-inflated soccer football) into worms – the area at either end of canvas. Unlike in Rugby football, a player need only kick the ball across the worms line to score.[4]
The basic principle is that each team can only kick the ball once before the other team touches it (unless the kicker has been deemed to have kicked it his hardest).[5] The main rules are called tag, dribble, behind your side, and handiwork.[6][7]
Breaking any of these rules means that play is brought one or two posts back for a hot (scrum). Once the ball is out of the hot, the "hotwatches" (scrum-halves) try to get the ball past the hot, either to kick the ball into worms, or to kick the ball into ropes (off the canvas, resulting in a hot where the ball went out).[4] Minor infringements result in a free bust.[7]
The key points of the scoring system are that:
Winchester football is played on a pitch known as a canvas, 80 metres long and 15 metres wide, flanked on either side by 2.5 metre high netting (confusingly called the canvas as well; as is the squad for a winkies team[8]) designed to prevent balls from being kicked off the pitch. Approximately a metre in front of the netting and running parallel to it is a thick rope, supported at a height of one metre by nine stout posts at intervals along the canvas (or seven posts, as on some of the smaller pitches on Palmer Field). The distance between two adjacent posts is known as a post; hence the total length of the canvas is normally eight posts. The inaccessible area between the ropes and the netting is known as ropes. The goal area off each end of the pitch is known as worms.[4]
Major matches are played with teams made up of 15 players, known as XVs;[8] other matches can be played with smaller teams, usually 6 or 10, known as VIs and Xs respectively. In VIs, there are two kicks (full-backs), one hotwatch (half-back) and three hot (scrum) players. In Xs, there are two kicks, three hotwatches and five hot players. In XVs there are three kicks, four hotwatches and eight hot players. The team sizes may differ sometimes in smaller house competitions, with IXs and XIs being common-place. The players' roles are as follows:[9]
Major matches are played between three teams, called Old Tutor's Houses (OTH), Commoners, and College. OTH wear brown and white striped zephyrs (football shirts), and consist of pupils from Furley's, Toye's, Cook's, Chawker's, and Hopper's boarding houses. Commoners wear red and white striped zephyrs, and consist of pupils from Kenny's, Freddie's, Phil's, Trant's, and Beloe's. College wear blue and white striped zephyrs, and consist only of pupils from College, the scholars' institution.[9]
In the 17th century, Winchester football was played in Kingsgate Street; each team attempted to move a football from one end to the other, with little in the way of rules. The game was then moved away from the College to the flat, grassy top of St. Catherine's Hill. The game persisted with few rules, but required a long line of kickers-in, junior boys, on both sides of the pitch to keep the ball from rolling away down the hillsides.[5][9]
By about 1825, the rules had been standardised and matches with large teams of 22 players, 20 in the hot (scrum) and 2 behinds (backs) were played between College (the scholars resident in the school's medieval buildings) and Commoners.[5][10] The fundamental rules of "dribble" and "tag" were added at this stage. By 1860, the game was moved from the top of St. Catherine's Hill to where it is played now, on Meads.[5][11] The lines of kickers-in were then replaced by canvas sheets, resulting in the name "canvas" for the football pitch, and soon afterwards by netting to allow people to watch the game without the aid of a ladder.[5]
By 1901, teams had been reduced to 15, with 8 in the hot, 3 "hotwatchers" (scrum-halves), and 3 "behinds".[6]
The earliest evidence of coloured shirts used to identify football teams comes from Winchester football: an image from before 1840 is entitled "The commoners have red and the college boys blue jerseys."[12] The use of coloured shirts at Winchester College was confirmed again in 1859: "Precisely at twelve o'clock, according to good old custom, the blue jerseys of college and the red of commoners mingled in the grand commencing 'hot'."[13] That same year, Winchester College played a match of an undefined variety of football against the Winchester Garrison Officers; 28 "goals" were scored, with 11 players on each side, leading the historian Ian Denness to suggest that the rules were a hybrid of the Winchester and Eton football games.[14]
Winchester College football was the first variety of football that was played in South Africa, promoted by Canon Gorge Ogilvie, principal of the Diocesan College in Rondebosch; it remained dominant until 1878.[1][5][15]
In 1941, General Archibald Wavell, an alumnus of Winchester (an Old Wykehamist), was congratulated by telegram for his success in pushing the Italian 10th Army back in North Africa with the words "hotting the enemy over worms" (pushing the hostile scrum back over the goal line).[5] In 1996, another Old Wykehamist, John Whittingdale, speaking in Parliament in a debate on sport, said that "at school, I was forced to play a weekly game of fives, as well as a peculiarly brutal game known as Winchester College football, which normally resulted in substantial injuries to the participants."[16] In the 21st century, Winchester College football has become known as Winkies.[17] An older Winchester college notion for it is "Win Co Fo".[11] The game exists now only in the Winchester College community. The game's season is the spring term.[1]
