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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

theguardian.com

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Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#51

Post by seanhunter »

butterfly42069 wrote: post #24
CJefferson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's it. The reason I think this game is so popular is horse chestnut trees are very popular in the UK. For about a month each year, where I grew up the ground would be littered with conkers, both on my route to school and on school grounds. It's natural when walking around to try to find particularly large / impressive looking ones.

[flagged]

I have no idea why you think safety laws prevent people from playing conkers in spite of the very thread you are commenting on being evidence that people play conkers and it is perfectly legal.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#52

Post by ungreased0675 »

butterfly42069 wrote: post #7

They said he had balls of steel to try that one For the yanks and elsewhere, yes conkers is well known in Britain. You basically put a chestnut (but its a conker) on a string by making a hole in the middle. Take turns swinging them on the string, whoever's breaks is the loser. It used to be great fun till it was banned/requires eye protection now. There's an opportunity there, someone could make a perfectly safe conk…

How is it banned? Banned in schools you mean?

Because I can’t see how authorities could ban anyone from picking up a conker from the ground and tying a string to it.

On a different note, if you’re just pulling a random one out of a bag, what is the competitive aspect? Is there a technique involved? Or just RNG?

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#53

Post by zabzonk »

thatguymike wrote: post #26

I'm surprised they pick their conkers out of a bag. The whole fun when I was a kid was competing for who could find the toughest conker. Common cheating methods included putting it through the tumble dryer to dry it out (Mum didn't love that) or soaking in vinegar. If you're pulling conkers out of a bag I think each match is basically a coin flip, unless there's much more technique I'm missing?

As someone that played it over 60 years ago, there is quite a bit of technique involved - for example, aiming to hit the opponent's conker accurately and hard.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#54

Post by Nursie »

lock_enthusiast wrote: post #4
School-Cotton wrote: post #2

Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Or are you expected to have to google it? Apparently it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Yes, I can see how a steel fake chestnut would be an advantage here, though I’m amazed it wouldn’t be inst…

I feel there is enough in the article to build an image of the game in your head: I'm imagining a game game where two people trying to destroy the other person's chestnut by whirring and hitting the chestnuts on the end of strings. Now I'm going to go check my mental image against wikipedia.

That's more or less it.

You make a hole through your 'conker' (horse chestnut, not the edible type) and thread a string or a bootlace through it.

Then you take turns.

One holds their string still and lets the conker hang down, the other gets a swing at it with their conker. Whoever's conker lasts the longest is the winner.

There were all sorts of rumours about baking them, or soaking in vinegar or what have you to harden them up, but effectively it's the sort of game that a bunch of kids can play under a horse chestnut tree with relatively few props.

Using a steel 'ringer' in that circumstance would be the worst sort of unsportsmanlike behaviour.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#55

Post by aardvark179 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #2

Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Or are you expected to have to google it? Apparently it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Yes, I can see how a steel fake chestnut would be an advantage here, though I’m amazed it wouldn’t be inst…

I think most people would know just from the headline.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#56

Post by Nursie »

beezlewax wrote: post #45
DougN7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, I don’t understand what THAT means! A swan might break your arm?!?

Ye and the queen eats swans for breakfast or something like that.

All swans are owned by the crown and the monarch has the exclusive right to kill and eat them.

Or at least that's the way I heard it, come to think of it I have no idea at all if that's true. Stops people killing and eating swans though. Not that many would anyway these days.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#57

Post by animatethrow »

I needed this cute video to tell me what the heck conker is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg

You and your opponent each attach a chestnut to a shoestring. You try to destroy your opponent's stringed chestnut by swinging your own stringed chestnut at it. The video explains different ways to cheat, such as coating the chestnut with nail varnish.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#59

Post by Nursie »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #52
butterfly42069 wrote: post #7

They said he had balls of steel to try that one For the yanks and elsewhere, yes conkers is well known in Britain. You basically put a chestnut (but its a conker) on a string by making a hole in the middle. Take turns swinging them on the string, whoever's breaks is the loser. It used to be great fun till it was banned/requires eye protection now. There's an opportunity there, someone could make a perfectly safe conk…

How is it banned? Banned in schools you mean? Because I can’t see how authorities could ban anyone from picking up a conker from the ground and tying a string to it. On a different note, if you’re just pulling a random one out of a bag, what is the competitive aspect? Is there a technique involved? Or just RNG?

IIRC at some point schools decided to put a stop to it (it was a popular playground game in Autumn) because of the possibility of injury.

Or that might have just been a tabloid outrage-bait headline.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#60

Post by throwup238 »

Finbarr wrote: post #8
School-Cotton wrote: post #2

Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Or are you expected to have to google it? Apparently it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Yes, I can see how a steel fake chestnut would be an advantage here, though I’m amazed it wouldn’t be inst…

Yes, it is. It’s a game most news-reading-age adults will have played when they were at school as children.

Geez, we just had tetherball. No one tried to destroy each other’s nuts.
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