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A question for our older ladies and gentlemen (not pointing any fingers)Im currently doing a module in uni on sociology of sport, and naturally im bringing paintball into my work. Today discussing the history of welsh rugby (becuase thats all we talk about in wales ) it got me thinking on the history of our sport. I know its very young in comparison but all history should be cherished, especially when we have the chance to record it properly with todays technology.

It is a signed Splatmaster by Bob Gurnsey for sale on Ebay. Mark Forums Read FAQ Register. Paintball Forum - Paintball guns and gear forums Buy, Sell, Trade Ebay Bob Gurnsey Signed Gun on Ebay Thread Tools May 30th, 2016, 03:23 PM #1. Bob Gurnsey: He marketed paintball as a game of capture the flag with teams using the cattle marking pistols; this is the start of what we play now a team game of bush ball playing capture the flag.

So ive just browsed on wikipedia (i know not academically credible) and it has this paragraph within its information, so im wondering is this statement correct? And could anyone further elaborate on this subject?' In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stock trader, Bob Gurnsey, and author Charles Gaines were discussing Gaines' recent trip to Africa and his experiences hunting buffalo. Inspired in part by Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game, they created a game where they would stalk and hunt each other; recreating the same adrenaline rush that came with animal hunting.6 In 1981 in New Hampshire, the group used a 'Nel-spot 007' pistol (normally used by farmers and ranchers for marking trees and livestock) to fire balls of paint. Twelve people participated in this first game, which was a 'capture the flag' scenario between two teams. 'Also to and to this historic thread (see what i did there?) if you have any pictures of your wandering nostalgia of when you had hair and shot people, it would be greatly appreciatedCheers allDanBrotherhood.

Here is what some may suggest is the definitive work on paintball's history albeit heavily US biased but we can forgive them for thatI must warn you however, this is gotta be the longest post ever put up on P8ntballer.com. I didn't author it otherwise you would have seen a lot more European content but hey. Someone spent a lotta time putting this together and for that, they should be applauded if not read fully.The following body of work is entirely due to the concerted efforts of one man - John Amodea, he alone set about the task of documenting the history of paintball, it's a one-off work and there's nothing else in paintball that comes close to such a comprehensive coverage of our beloved sport of paintball.1.

Summer 1970-1974(U.S. Patent 3,788, 298 issued on January 29, 1974)Long Before the First Game Was Played, the Nelspot Marker and the “Paint-Ball”. Were InventedWhile the first game of paintball wasn’t played until 1981, 1970 was surely a year that was important in the history of the sport. That was the year the Nelspot, the first paintball marker was designed.What was the first paintgun you ever played with? For many players it was a semiautomatic.

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For some it may have even been an electronic marker capable of firing 20-plus non-toxic, biodegradable balls per second. It wasn’t that easy for those that played in the early 1980s though.The Nelson Paint Company, founded by Charlie Nelson in 1940, was approached by a northeast forestry group in the mid 1960s and asked to manufacture a paint-filled ball-one that could be shot from an air-powered marker for the purpose of marking hard-to-reach trees for excavation and other forestry uses. They eventually took on the project and manufactured a.68 caliber oil-based ball in conjunction with RP Scherer (Nelson made the paint and RP Scherer encapsulated it). The next challenge was to figure out how to fire these new paint-balls. Nelson then went to Crossman, one of the two biggest airgun manufacturers and the first paintgun, the Nelspot “707,” was designed and manufactured. Sales were slow for Crossman early on and they backed out of the deal.

Nelson went to the other airgun giant, Daisy, who picked up where Crossman left off. Despite the folklore, the Nelspot “707” predated the Nelspot “007,” which became the model that inspired later markers the likes of the Bushmaster, Phantom, Razorback, and many others. After the success of the “007,” the “707” was re-released but never took off.Like today’s paintball player, enthusiasts tinkered with, customized, and tweaked their markers trying to get that extra edge on the field, even in the 1980s.

Players made extended magazines for the Nelspot; they added ball drops, and one player even designed his own pump handle from PVC in 1983. Ken Muffler of the Delaware Delta Dogs spent five days designing and incorporating a pump-handle on his Nelspot and played four games with hits newly upgraded gun on November 20, 1983. Later, in the 1984 regional Survival Game tournament playoffs, a team the Dogs were playing protested the enhanced Nelspot claiming it gave his team an unfair advantage.ΑI still have scars from the cocking bolt on my Nelspot. I couldn’t take it anymore so I finally designed a cardboard pump-handle for my Nelspot.

Before long I was making pumps for everyone on the team. ≅ -Bill Churchwell, member of the NSG Championship LRRPS and owner of Tech-na Ball, one of the leaders in paintgun upgrading in the mid-to-late 1980s.The term “paintball” had not yet been coined at this point in time. The most common spelling of the word was a hyphenated “paint-ball.” The terms used to describe the game in the early stages were “The Survival Game,” war-games or skirmish.What else was going on in 1974?1974 Most Popular TV shows1. All in the Family (CBS)2. Sanford and Son (NBC)3. Chico and the Man (NBC)4.

The Jeffersons (CBS)5. M.A.S.H (CBS)President Nixon resigned from office before being impeached.2.

Spring, 1976Meeting of the Minds: Who Would Come Out Alive?Bob Gurnsey, Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel Dream Up This Great GameCharles Gaines’ preface in “The Official Survival Game Manual” tells one story-years later he remembered the early days slightly differently. Bob Gurnsey confirmed most of Gaines’ story but will also give you a slightly different version. To piece this story together we spoke directly to Gaines and Gurnsey, as well as Debra Dion Krischke, who was there for much of the beginnings. We also interviewed several other people that were there in the beginning.Jupiter Island, Florida was the backdrop for probably the biggest moment in paintball history, although no one knew it then. While sipping Gin and Tonics and grilling freshly caught King Mackerel one afternoon, Charles Gaines and his life-long best friend Hayes Noel got into a debate about Survival. Noel recently returned from a hunting trip which got him thinking.

He wondered if a sharp, city-dwelling businessman would stand a better chance of surviving a “stalking” game than a true outdoorsman. Was survival a matter of instinct or was it a product of environment? Noel was a very successful stock broker in a very competitive New York market and he believed this would give him an advantage. While living in New York he was once “jumped” by three men and he actually scared them off by screaming and throwing trash cans at them. He believed that his instincts to act crazier than them may have saved his life.Gaines, from New Hampshire believed that an outdoorsman like himself would stand a better chance of “coming out alive” in a survival scenario.

After all, he had hunted, fished and done everything else imaginable in the outdoors for years. Surely this would be an advantage over a city boy he thought. The two debated this for hours. A third friend, Bob Gurnsey, also from New Hampshire was brought into the debate. He too agreed that the outdoorsman would have the advantage.A short time later the three were talking about a situation in a book written in the 1930s called The Most Dangerous Game. In the book an insane man lived on an island and invited guests to play a survival game. What the guests didn’t know was that they would become this crazy man’s prey.

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Later than night Gurnsey and Noel discussed doing an activity that would throw a series of adverse circumstances at the participants. They discussed several different whitewater scenarios that involved cliffs, rock climbing, and flags; they talked about having a BB gun battle; they discussed wax-tipped.22 caliber bullets and just about anything else that would help them determine what type of person would perform best in these crazy scenarios.Months later a mutual friend named George Butler, who was privy to the conversations between Gaines, Gurnsey and Noel, saw a Nelspot marker in a farm catalog and phoned Gaines about it. Soon after being contacted by Butler, Gaines purchased several of these markers and the dream was about to become a reality.

Invitations were sent out to nine men, who with the original three would make twelve players.Source: The Survival Game Manual, Gurnsey, Gaines, Krischke3. May, 1981The “Real” First Game Ever Played“Before we ever played that first game, Hayes and I each wrapped towels around our waists and shot each other to see how badly it would hurt. Hayes shot first and missed. Then I shot him in the butt. Once we realized it was going to be fairly safe, we talked about playing our first one-on-one game.

We wrote some simple rules, went into the woods and played a 45-minute game. It ended when I got snuck up behind Hayes and said, ‘I guess I won the argument!’ Neither of us fired a single shot.” –Charles Gaines speaking at the 2004 IAO in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaMost people believe the first game of paintball played was in June of 1981, but in reality it was months earlier when Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel played that one-on-one game that lasted about 45 minutes.

After their one-on-one game, they knew they would have to do this again with a larger group.and the rest is history.4. June, 1981Twelve Players, Twelve Flags and the Winner Didn’t Fire a Single Shot - An Industry is BornYou have to figure that in the eleven years between the time the paintgun was invented in 1970 and the first recorded game was played in 1981, there were probably other instances where people shot each other with those oil-based balls using Nelspots. It’s hard to imagine that in seven years of forestry work no one “accidentally” fired a shot at a coworker in the field. But like the first recorded basketball game 90 years earlier in 1891, the only one that really matters is the game that is documented.The first known group game played barely resembles the last game played. Twelve men armed with Nelspot 007s, shop goggles, and each carrying a map and compass played the first game of what we now call paintball. It was an “every man for himself” game and the object was to collect as many flags as possible by the game’s end.

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The story is now legendary.The InvitationsGurnsey, Gaines, and Noel made a list of possible participants for this first game of paintball. They believed the list should be limited to those that were successful in their particular field as this would be the only real way to settle the “argument.” On the final list were stock brokers, writers, master hunters, surgeons, and others. There would be twelve players in all, each paying $175 to cover expenses. The game was to be played on a 100-plus acre tract of land and the object of the game was to collect as many flags as possible.

Eliminating the opposition would be only a small part of the game, proven by the fact that the game’s winner never fired a shot.The field was divided into four quadrants with three flags in each. The twelve players, each with their own unique strategies, crawled, ran, or sneaked around the property trying to eliminate players and/or capture the twelve flags. In the end it was Ritchie White who managed to grab all twelve flags, winning the first game of paintball ever played.Game Facts. Ken Barret surrendered to Jerome Gary, becoming the first player officially eliminated in the first multiplayer paintball game.

Dr. Bob Carlson eliminated five of the twelve players in what Gurnsey called a “stealthy, wiley, and cunning” manner. After being “bounced,” Charles Gaines eliminated Lionel Atwell. Hayes Noel was eliminated by Bob Carlson. Ritchie White captured all necessary flags and won the game without firing a single shot.5. October, 1981The First Female to PlayJessica Sparks and Debra Dion Krischke are known to many as the first ladies of paintball, but neither was the first female to playIf you were asked to name a few female paintball players you’d probably come up with names like Keely Watson, Bea Youngs, and maybe Karen Barber if you’re old school.

But if you’re REALLY old school you might know that the first female to play paintball was none other than Governor George Wallace’s wife, Cornelia Wallace. The setting was Wilcox County, Alabama—this was Ronnie Simpkins’ territory and along with Gurnsey and Gaines, Simpkins brought a bunch of friends to this game. This was not just a “game” however. The purpose of this one was to see how much interest there would be in a commercial version of the first game played. Gurnsey, Gaines and Noel had already begun what would soon after become the National Survival Game. On the way to Alabama Gurnsey presented Gaines and Noel with the idea to run this event in a team format.

He thought this would be the best way to market the game. He was outvoted by Gaines and Noel at first, but eventually they did play five-man teams games which were a huge hit with the players.6. Winter, 1981The National Survival Game Is BornBob Gurnsey, with the help of Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines created the first paintball products distribution companyBob Gurnsey saw the potential that this new found game had after that first time they played as a group in 1981. Gurnsey had just lost his ski shop business and was in financial straits, but knew this paintball thing could be big. So he went to his closest friends Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel and asked them for financial backing to start a new company called the National Survival Game. Noel put up $20,000, and in addition to the startup money, paid Gurnsey $139 a week to work on the project. Gaines went to work on the public relations side of things.

In the meantime, articles about the first group game of paintball ran in Sports Illustrated and Sports Afield, creating a buzz that Gurnsey was sure would help things get started.According to Gaines while speaking at the 2004 IAO, “After the Sports Illustrated article ran, I received hundreds of letters from people that wanted to know where they could buy the gear from. Somehow my address ended up the article.

June 30, 2011 Pittsburgh, Pa – Team Effort Events is pleased to announce that industry founder, Bob Gurnsey, will present the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Paintball Festival and Business Conference. Known as the father to the sport, Bob Gurnsey was one of three originators to the game and participated in the first match ever recorded.

His creation of The National Survival Game Inc, laid a foundation for an industry that would grow exponentially over the next few decades.Click READ MORE for the full release from the Paintball Festival!View full post onRelated posts:.