Conkering heroes

Few games rival conkers for sheer excitement. Simon Lester ponders the merits of round-topped nuts versus flat-sided cheesers and exposes the nefarious tricks some use to win at all costs

- Simon Lester

AUTUMN is in the air and with it comes a sense of nostalgic, childhood anticipation for the conker season. Even now, many of us have an inexplicable appreciation for a shiny new conker—a beautiful, deep-brown and pleasingly round orb that’s a seasonal treat for the senses. Alas, it’s perhaps old—rather than young— boys and girls who tend to get excited these days, as this fine old playground game has fallen foul of excessive health and safety precautions. If I cast my mind back to the carefree days of my own childhood, you were more likely to hurt yourself or one of your friends by collecting conkers than by playing the game itself. We village lads knew all the best ‘conkering’ spots, the trees that yielded the biggest, glossiest beauties. The danger came when you saw the forbidden fruit, hanging still encased in its spiky shell, unblemished and unseen—it simply had to be bigger and rounder than any found on the ground.

To get these green Sputniks down to earth, a barrage of sticks and stones would be launched upwards, but what goes up must come down and the conkering excursion could well end with a bump or a stitch or two. Nonetheless, this was a small sacrifice for a carrier bag of a couple of weeks’ entertainment. There may have been a slipping hazard, too, as the playground would be littered with the shattered remnants of would-be champions.