Conkers, for those of you who don’t live in the British Isles, is a traditional game where kids run a string through a horse chestnut and then take turns swinging them against each other’s chestnuts (or “conkers”). The first conker that breaks apart, loses.
As with any niche interest, there is now a world championship tournament for this, and this year, the big news should have been that for the first time, an American—Kelci Banschbach of Indianapolis—won the Women’s Championship. But instead, the headlines went to 82-year-old David “King Conker” Jakins, who finally won the Men’s title after 47 years of competing. Upon victory, however, Jakins was accused of cheating, and was, in fact, found to have a steel conker on his person during the competition. Is nothing sacred?
As news of this swiftly went global, the World Conkers Championship convened a 14-person task force to review the allegations, and even went so far as to use video-assisted refereeing (VAR) to get to the bottom of things. Had Jakins actually used his steel conker, or did he merely have it on him as a gag, as he claimed?
Meanwhile, people asked, Who cheats at conkers? Moreover, who cares who cheats at conkers?
Ultimately, the WCC exonerated Jakins. Even though Jakins had taken part in preparing the tournament conkers (from which contestants drew randomly), and even though he had a clearly illegal conker on him, video replay showed that on the round in which he was alleged to have cheated, Jakins never pulled the steel conker from his pocket. The WCC publicly chalked off the cheating allegations to sour grapes by a defeated contestant who didn’t take kindly to seeing his own conker vaporized so thoroughly.
