Having the strength to conker

The Art of conkering

It’s that time of year again. The time when you marvel at the colours of autumn, when you wake up and think: “It’s freezing!” — even though it isn’t yet and the time when little boys really wish they’d remembered to put a load of conkers in the airing cupboard 12 months ago.

Despite what the health and safety brigade claim, children are still playing conkers as they always have — the only difference is they now wear helmets, plastic visors to protect their eyes and steel mesh gloves to ensure their little fingers come through unscathed.

Also, among the crowds of spectators who can still be heard shouting such traditional slogans as: “Smash it! Smash it!”, it’s likely you’ll now find St John’s Ambulance volunteers and no-win no-fee injury lawyers.

But in the heat of battle, the principles are still the same. With aggression and grace, your swing must hit the spot every time.

There is no room for excuses. Conker-eye-co-ordination can take years to develop, especially as you only use it for three weeks every October, and holding your nerve in the face of comments like “watch him miss this” is vital.

But what really matters is the strength of your conker.

Patience is needed to create a champion conker because they don’t get hard overnight, unless you dip them in molten metal and leave them in the fridge. There are various things you can do to toughen them up and not all of them are very sporting.

Aside from investing a year or even longer drying them out, an applicatio of tippex or nail varnish will hopefully add a bit of steal but if that’s your chief aim, why not just drill a hole through a ball bearing instead.

Create a cover story about your grandad mysteriously leaving his prized conker to you in his will and you can set about destroying every opponent as long as there’s no surprise visit from the ‘Conker Authenticity Inspectorate’.

Probably the most famous conkerer of all was a French guy called William. Legend has it that he had a right set of conkers on him and feared no-one. Back in 1066 he crossed the channel for what was dubbed The Battle of Hastings where he intended to take on the English conker champion known as King Harold.

Tragedy struck though when a bit of conker shot into Harold’s eye like an arrow. It caused him to lose the battle, his eye and, not to put to finer point on it, die. Shocking then it should take so long for protective clothing to be considered essential in such a dangerous and confrontational sport. Perhaps we should thank our lucky stars that more people haven’t been injured so horrendously in the intermitting 950 years.


Next week: The Art of Queuing.