Quidditch is the sport in J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world. Witches and wizards follow Quidditch as avidly as American Muggles follow American football and the rest of the Muggle world follows soccer. Quidditch is played on flying broomsticks above a grassy field known as a pitch. According to the Harry Potter books, the standard Quidditch pitch is an oval shape that measures five hundred feet in length and one hundred and eighty feet at its widest point. In the very center of the pitch is a small circle of about two feet in diameter, where the referee stands to release the balls at the beginning of a match. On either end of the pitch are three golden hoops atop poles raised approximately fifty feet in the air. Harry compares them to Muggle bubble wands in the first book. In the films, the Quidditch pitch is much wider than in the books, the center circle is larger, and the three goal posts with the hoops are of varied lengths. Viewing stands for spectators are raised into the air, in either a variation on Muggle stadium seating as seen in the film version of Goblet of Fire, or towers at various intervals, as seen in the first, second, third, and sixth Harry Potter films. Given the wizarding world’s need for secrecy, Quidditch pitches tend to be built in more isolated places, where Muggles won’t notice them. Although the actors in the Harry Potter films shot their Quidditch scenes at Leavesden Studios, most of the exterior location and backdrop shots were filmed at Glen Nevis, a valley north of Fort William in Scotland, Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the United Kingdom, which is one of the mountains that surround Glen Nevis, and Steall Falls, at the foot of Ben Nevis. The Quidditch World Cup exteriors and background shots were filmed at Beachy Head near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the south of England.
There are seven positions on each Quidditch team, consisting of three Chasers, two Beaters, one Keeper, and one Seeker. The chasers throw a twelve inch, red leather-covered ball – called the Quaffle – to one another, with the object of getting the Quaffle through one of the opposing team’s hoops. Getting the Quaffle through a hoop nets the team ten points. The beaters’ job is to use their small clubs to beat away the hard, black, ten-inch balls – called Bludgers – that are enchanted to knock the players off their brooms. The Keeper’s function is to keep the other team’s Chasers from getting the Quaffle through a hoop. The Seeker, who is usually the smallest and fastest player on the team, flies all over the pitch, trying to spot and then catch the tiny Golden Snitch, which is “… about the size of a large walnut.” The Golden Snitch has little wings, which enable it to hurtle around incredibly quickly. Both its speed and its tiny size make the Golden Snitch nearly impossible to see. A Quidditch match can only end when the Golden Snitch is caught, which means that it can potentially go on for weeks (the record is three months). The team whose Seeker catches the Golden Snitch gets one hundred and fifty points, which frequently means that team also wins the match. However, if the Chasers of a particular team are exceptionally good – as was the case with the Irish team at the 1994 Quidditch World Cup – they can rack their team’s score up so high that one hundred and fifty points won’t matter. As one might expect with such a fast moving game, fouls happen all the time.