thumb|upright=1.5|A match between Commoners (red stripe) and Old Tutor's Houses (brown stripe) in Meads begins with a hot ([[Scrum (rugby)|scrum) on the halfway line. Supporters watch from behind ropes (rope with blue posts) and a safety net.]]

Winchester College football, also known as Winkies, is a code of football played at Winchester College in Hampshire, England. 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 during the spring term from January to 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 main game has teams of 15, but in smaller competitions the teams may be of 10 or 6 players.

Rules

The game somewhat resembles rugby football, as players can kick the ball or run with it. 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. 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.

  • Handiwork is any illegal use of the hands. The rule allows somewhat more freedom than the handling rule in soccer. Only the kicks (full backs) may use their hands to control the ball. Any other player may catch the ball on the full toss, but use of the hands at any other time is deemed handiwork. A catch on the full toss by any player enables them to take up to three steps and then bust (punt) the ball.) 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.

Teams

thumb|upright=1.25|[[Architecture of Winchester College#Victorian|Flint Court on Winkies Day: the classroom buildings are decked out with Commoners and Old Tutor's Houses zephyrs.]]

Major matches are played with teams made up of 15 players, known as XVs;

History

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. 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. 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.

By 1901, teams had been reduced to 15, with 8 in the hot, 3 "hotwatchers" (scrum-halves), and 3 "behinds".

The earliest evidence of coloured shirts that identify football teams comes from Winchester football: an image from before 1840 is entitled "The commoners have red and the college boys blue jerseys." 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'." 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.

Winchester football was the first variety of football played in South Africa, promoted by Canon Gorge Ogilvie, principal of the Diocesan College in Rondebosch; it remained dominant until 1878.

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). 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."

In the 21st century, the game has become known as Winkies. An older Winchester college notion for it is "Win Co Fo".