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5 hours ago
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The sign queueing up to get my conker seemed a tad dramatic. “You won’t die, but you might lose an eye,” it read, but less than an hour later, in the midst of a chestnut-ridden battlefield, I wondered what else this frantic game could cost me.
On the instruction of my editors, who probably thought this job would be a jolly, risk-free jaunt, I headed down to the Peckham Conker Championships in south London on Saturday afternoon to take part. It was staged in a boozy alleyway where beers and bobbling chestnuts abounded.
The strong winds didn’t put many off and, by the time the competition began, the strip was heaving with punters ready to do one thing. “I’m here to crack some nuts,” said Navid Akram, who was playing conkers for the first time. Despite being a novice, the 32-year-old was confident about his chances. “I wanna show I am the conquering beast.”
He was joined by Arno Bryant, 30, a conkers veteran who remembers “trying to find the most beautiful, largest conkers” for battle when he was a child. He had sourced half a dozen of them, which he decorated with goggly eyes in preparation for the tournament, but they were far from the best batch he had picked. “I went hunting yesterday for them but they’re quite beady. It’s been a fallow conker year,” he said.
The competition comes after an uncharacteristically dramatic time for the sport. Last year, the conkers legend David Jakins, who is also known as King Conker, was accused of cheating after a steel chestnut was discovered in his pocket. The offending item was found after the 82-year-old was searched by organisers of the World Conker Championships after his victory at the competition.
An investigation was launched but, in the end, he was cleared of any wrongdoing. While the World Conker Championships has strict rules, the Peckham upstart is far more liberal. In fact, cheating is encouraged. “We just enjoy people who take their hobbies too far, and this is a classic example of it. It’s innocent fun,” said Akram.
Like Akram, I never grew up playing conkers, unless having them lobbed at me in the playground (and dashing them back) counts as a guerilla offshoot. At the Peckham games, I was placed into a team of strangers, who kindly embraced me despite being a novice. The captain, Ella Rodgers, 33, showed me the ropes. I was asked to come up with my own name for our scorecard, which somewhat rhymed with conker. Honker, Conkerella and Donkey Konk were sadly taken, so I opted for Stonker.
I had five minutes to face off against each member of the team, with the aim of cracking their conker and, if I ranked top of the preliminary battle, I would advance to the next stage. This would go on until two people in the entire competition remained. They would duel on stage until a winner was declared. The victor would walk away with the ultimate prize: a 24-carrot conker.
My hopes were low and, at first, this was well founded. I got my chestnut hanging from a shoelace ready and, facing my first foe, I swung my conker at hers. It missed massively and nearly swung back round to knock me out. I had two more goes and on my final one, I had managed to graze hers. I was awarded a pity point. She went next and scored a hit two out of three times.
I went again and, using a shorter amount of shoelace for my aim, I managed to hit her nut and cause some damage. From here on, I was on a roll. After a few more rounds I struck another crack but instead of falling loose our conkers had managed to get tangled. This triggered another phase of the game: the tussle. This is where the sign at the beginning began to make sense.
We had to fight for the lace and whoever pulled hardest would be awarded a point. I made a good go of it but the burn on my palms made me give up. The wraps around other competitors’ arms finally made sense. At this point, many others around me had also found their stride but, along with cheers, more frantic tussles broke out and chestnuts were coming from all directions. Some eager participants even knocked into us, though this was followed by a profuse apology.
I am not cut out for this, I thought. I covered my mouth and later learned this was with good reason. Last year’s victor, Pietro the Pummeller, chipped a tooth in his final duel after getting tossed around in an on-stage tussle.
After bowing out, I left it to the experts. The Pummeller, who had a two-year winning streak, was finally felled and Timothy Nuts was crowned this year’s victor.
