Guyball is a fictional game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

 featured in the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 sitcom Green Wing

Green Wing

Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony, led by Victoria Pile, and stars Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt....

. The rules of Guyball are never fully explained, and are designed to be as confusing and as difficult to understand as possible. However, Green Wing fans have attempted to create their own rules and Guyball societies. The first such society was created at King's College London

King's College London

King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

.

The most renowned player is the fictional half-Swiss anaesthetist Dr Guy Secretan

Guy Secretan

Guy Secretan is a character in the British sitcom Green Wing, played by Stephen Mangan. In Channel 4's The World's Greatest Comedy Characters, Guy was voted 34th.- History :...

. Due to the similarity between his name and that of Guyball, and the fact that Guyball's specialist terminology has a heavy Swiss influence, it seems likely that Guy invented it. He first played Guyball at Whiteleaf ( "whitliff"), a public school he attended for twelve years (1977-90). Guyball is first mentioned in the seventh episode of series one of Green Wing, "Tangled Webs", as Guy prepares for a world championship semi-final, having won his second-round match in five straight clappers. Other noted players include Markus Geissler, "The Big Austrian", who Guy walked over in the first round because he had shin splints

Shin splints

Shin splints or medial tibial stress syndrome refers to pain along or just behind the shins with sports that apply extreme pressure to the legs, such as gymnastics...

.

The idea for Guyball was inspired by real-life obscure sports played solely at particular real English public schools – such as the Eton Wall Game

Eton Wall Game

The Eton wall game is a game similar to football and Rugby Union, that originated from and is still played at Eton College. It is played on a strip of ground 5 metres wide and 110 metres long next to a slightly curved brick wall, erected in 1717....

 and Winchester College Football

Winchester College Football

Winchester College Football, also known as Winkies, WinCoFo or simply "Our Game", is a code of football played at Winchester College. It is akin to the Eton Field and Wall Games and the Harrow Game in that it enjoys a large following from Wykehamists and old Wykehamists but is not played outside...

. It was created by Green Wing writer Richard Preddy

Richard Preddy

Richard Preddy is a British comedy writer and performer, most noted for working in the sketch show Smack the Pony and the sitcom Green Wing...

, and it was later developed by the other writers.

Basic rules

The object of the game, according to Guy, is simply "to put the ball into the basket". The basket in question is part of the topmiler, a special helmet worn by one or more of the players. This consists of a wicker basket (fastened to the player's head by a leather strap) with an attached pair of flying goggles to protect the eyes. Whether or not a given player wears a topmiler, hurls balls at their opponents, or has balls hurled at them, seems to vary depending on circumstance.

Before starting a match, one is encouraged to splice the Matterhorn

Matterhorn

The Matterhorn , Monte Cervino or Mont Cervin , is a mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its summit is 4,478 metres high, making it one of the highest peaks in the Alps. The four steep faces, rising above the surrounding glaciers, face the four compass points...

by insulting one's opponents – though this might very well be a means, invented by Guy on the spur of the moment, for getting away with shouting abuse at a group of children. It starts when the official shouts Commence.

Advanced rules

The detailed rules of Guyball depend on the variation being played. A "classic three-person variation of the game", in which two people chase the wearer of the topmiler, is described by Guy to his colleague Dr Martin Dear

Martin Dear

Martin Dear is a character in the British sitcom Green Wing, played by Karl Theobald.- History :Martin is a house officer at East Hampton Hospital. His mother is human resources director Joanna Clore and his half-brother is Dr. Guy Secretan....

 (as Martin wears an improvised topmiler made of a wicker bin sellotaped to his head) as follows:
One might also play with orthodox or alternate stickles and a four-bounce ubique (ˈuːbɪkweɪ), though this tends to be in matches in which the two sides have an equal number of players, all of whom wear topmilers. Positions in which Guyball players may find themselves include:

• The Emmental
  Emmental
  For the cheese made in the region, see Emmental .The Emmental is a region in west central Switzerland, forming part of the canton of Bern. It is a hilly landscape comprising the basins of the Emme and Ilfis rivers. The region is mostly devoted to farming, particularly dairy farming...
  
   loop, in which one has a cleft mitten showing whilst one crouches to attack one's opponent.
• The classical heist, an attack in which one is standing with one's foot on the opponent's jaw and one's topmiler is empty.
• The fat chalet, similar to the classical heist but for the latter one's topmiler is geometrically loaded, that is, contains a large six-sided die
  Dice
  A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
  
  .

It is unknown who the reigning world Guyball champion is as of 2006, though Guy is still an active player and taught Guyball to some local children as part of his community service. He has claimed that if he had twelve children himself he would teach Guyball to all of them. According to The Complete First Series Scripts, a player can also be sent off for "Illegal use of the hefty fondue." This happened between Guy Secretan and Markus Geissler, during a match at the Secretanstadt, Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

. Guy won 12:3.

Whilst no guide to the rules has been officially published, there is a guide called The Guyball Rule Book that can be seen being read by Green Wing's writers on the Green Wing Special

Green Wing Special

The Green Wing Special is the final episode of the British sitcom Green Wing. It was first broadcast in Australia and Belgium on 29 December 2006. It was aired on 4 January 2007 in the United Kingdom. The episode is sometimes billed as a Christmas special, although the episode contains nothing...

DVD.

Possible Olympic sport

Guy receives a letter from the International Olympic Committee concerning the induction of Guyball as an Olympic sport, in The Complete First Series Scripts. The results reached by the committee were:

• "We do not think that Guyball is "The Bollocks"."
• "Guyball will not be included in the forthcoming Olympic Games
  Olympic Games
  The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
  
  ."
• "Contrary to whatever your friend "Diggler" might have heard, we do not accept "Bungs"."
• "We are not biased against Switzerland or any other nation."
• "We do not care if you know where we live."

However, in the "Green Wing Unmasked: Exclusive Collectors Booklet", the letter was instead sent to the "European Team Sports Federation".

Reality

Despite the fact that Guyball is a fictional game, many fans have tried to play the game in real-life, making their own rules and creating Guyball societies.

King's College London Guyball Society

Currently the only organised society to play Guyball in the UK is based in King's College London. It was founded by Jane Macallan and Anna Jones, who claim that it has been approved by Stephen Mangan

Stephen Mangan

Stephen Mangan is an English actor, best known for his roles as Guy Secretan in the television series Green Wing, Dan Moody in I'm Alan Partridge and as Holistic Detective Dirk Gently in the 2010 BBC adaptation of Douglas Adams' book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, as well as Sean Lincoln...

, the actor who plays Guy, and Green Wing's writers. According to an audio commentary on series 2, episode 4 of Green Wing, Tamsin Greig

Tamsin Greig

Tamsin Greig is an English actress principally known for two Channel 4 television comedy parts: Fran Katzenjammer in Black Books and Dr. Caroline Todd in Green Wing...

 says that the students were given money to research the rules, and if none existed, to invent them. The only copy of the rules is on the society's MySpace

MySpace

Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 page.

Recorded games

Only two games of Guyball have been recorded in real life

Real life

Real life is a term usually used to denote actual human life lived by real people in contrast with the lives of fictional or fantasy characters.-Usage online and in fiction:On the Internet, "real life" refers to life in the real world...

. The first was at a barbecue for TalkbackThames

TalkbackTHAMES

Talkback Thames is a British television production company, a division of FremantleMedia . It was formed by the merger of Talkback Productions and Thames Television, the former ITV network franchisee for London on weekdays between 1968 and 1992...

, Green Wing's production company, at North Hampshire Hospital

North Hampshire Hospital

Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital was granted Foundation Trust status in December 2006. Now called Basingstoke and North Hampshire NHS Foundation Trust , it has previously been known as The North Hampshire Hospital, and Basingstoke District Hospital.BNHFT is a 450 bed National Health Service...

, Basingstoke

Basingstoke

Basingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...

, where Green Wing is partly filmed. It was played by the actors, writers and crew of the show, including Mangan, Julian Rhind-Tutt

Julian Rhind-Tutt

Julian Alistair Rhind-Tutt is an English actor. He is best known for his starring role as "Mac" McCartney in the comedy television series Green Wing, the second series of which finished on Channel 4 in May 2006...

 and Pippa Haywood

Pippa Haywood

Philippa Haywood is an English actress who trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.Famous for playing the much-put-upon Helen Brittas in the BBC One comedy series The Brittas Empire, Haywood has an extensive television career which includes Julie Chadwick in the BBC Two comedy Fear, Stress &...

.

The second was at the first Green Wing convention

Fan convention

A fan convention, or con , is an event in which fans of a particular film, television series, comic book, actor, or an entire genre of entertainment such as science fiction or anime and manga, gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and...

, Wingin' It. The match was played at Brook Green, umpired by Stephen Mangan, and was organised by Green Wing's production assistant Patrick Schulenburg. The six-on-six match was played using the Geneva variation, with free fuddes and geometric sticles. Players were asked to "watch your coccyxes" before the match commenced. The players spliced the matterhorn, insulting Mangan. The first goal scored was an own goal

Own goal

An own net occurs in goal-scoring games when a player scores a goal that is registered against his or her own team. It is usually accidental, and may be a result of an attempt at defensive play that failed or was spoiled by opponents....

, as the team ran into their own parish. It was reported that some of the players were injured during the match. A DVD of the convention is to be released. So far, the convention has raised in the order of £5,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital

Great Ormond Street Hospital

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children is a children's hospital located in London, United Kingdom...

.

External links

• Green Wing "microsite" at Channel4.com
• British Sitcom Guide - About Guyball