by Michael King

Created on: January 22, 2010

Conkers is a fantastic, enjoyable, exhilarating and, best of all, free game of the last few centuries in Great Britain. Shame the safety boffins have now declared you should wear goggles while enjoying the pleasures of swinging a large hard object at somebody else's counter parting object in the aim of smashing it to pieces; what could be misconstrued as dangerous about that?

Seriously, the game itself is not dangerous, however it is immensely fun. Especially because of the endless fruity methods of "cheating" at conkers.

Essentially, the game is played between two people, each with a chestnut suspended on a medium sized piece of string, the players take it in turns to swing at the other's conker and the first to be obliterated loses. Simple. The loser walks away shamed by the pitiful state of his conker, attempting to pick up the pieces and start again; not literally of course.

However, it becomes more difficult when tournaments are arranged, with the obvious difficulty of residual damage, and of course organization. With tournaments of conkers comes the greatest honour, for one has the chance to become school champion, or wherever one may be organizing such a tournament, or of course the wooden spoon holder who loses in the first round. Again, that's just a phrase.

Now, before I mentioned cheating. Rife in the game of conkers more then anywhere else. Namely because in most conker institutions it is perfectly acceptable. The winner is the winner, there are no drugs tests, no disqualifications, one does whatever one can do to win.

Unfortunately, nobody knows how to cheat. Some claim that softening your conker is the way to go, lathering their conker in their mother's moisturiser, much to her approval, in order to allow the conker to absorb the blows more effectively. More aggressive players prefer to harden their conkers, using techniques such as heat treatment, pickling and even epoxy resin. Yes, you read that right, I once encountered a player who layered his conker in resin to form an outer shell that was nigh on impossible to break. This was the first disqualification I ever saw.

The champion of conkers though, is the old one. Leave aside a few conkers in a draw for next year and they will win any tournament in my experience. Plus it really annoys your less patient colleagues.

In conclusion, the game of conkers could not be more simple, or more fun. Just don't wear goggles.

Learn more about this author, Michael King.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.