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.
A match between Commoners (red stripe) and Old Tutor's Houses (brown stripe) begins with a hot (scrum) on the halfway line. Supporters watch from behind ropes (rope with blue posts) and a safety net.
The Old Tutor's Houses team takes a kick from their goal line, Worms.
Flint Court on Winkies Day: the classroom buildings are decked out with Commoners and OTH zephyrs.
Illustration of Winchester football by Richard Baigent, 1838, showing lines of "kickers-in" on both sides of the pitch. St. Catherine's Hill, where the game was once played, is in the background.
St. Catherine's Hill is a chalk downland hill and 43-hectare (110-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the outskirts of Winchester in Hampshire, England. It is owned by Winchester College but open to the public. It is managed by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, and topped by an Iron Age hillfort, a scheduled monument. In the Black Death, plague pits were dug in the dry valley on the south side of the hill. In the Early modern period, a mizmaze was cut on the hilltop. Winchester College football used to be played on the hill; in an old custom, members of the college assemble on the hill every year, early in the morning.
Iron Age rampart and outer ditch, with the dry valley in the background
Plague Pits Valley. Burial pits were dug during the Black Death when the city's graveyards became full.
The mizmaze, probably cut between 1647 and 1710