Britain’s Conker Chaos, or How a Forgotten Sport Defended its Integrity
Conkers became a media sensation when the 82-year-old world champion was accused of cheating. We look at how an unknown sport fought to show its integrity and fairness.
It’s a tale as old as sport. The veteran contender, a perennial also-ran, finally wins the gold after years of trying.
David Jakins, 82, embodies that trope. After 47 years of competing in the World Conker Championships (WCC), he triumphed. Dressed in green, wearing a bowler hat, with conkers draped all over him, Jakins was known as King Conker and had been a popular figure on the WCC for decades. But he had never won.
But on October 13, 2024, against the picturesque backdrop of the village of Southwick, a medieval hamlet in the hills of Northamptonshire, Jakins was in the WCC men’s finals against Alastair Johnson-Ferguson, a man almost sixty years younger.
Jakins took aim and swung. His downward swipe has been described as a “super technique,” by WCC spokesman, St. John Burkett. Johnson-Ferguson’s conker disintegrated in one blow. This is the equivalent of a walk-off knockout in boxing. Jakins had done it at last.
But accusations of foul play soon marred his victory. The loser was suspicious.
“My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn’t happen … I’m suspicious of foul play and have expressed my surprise to organisers,” Johnson-Ferguson told the press.
Jakins was found to have a steel conker in his pocket, which looked problematically real. It was painted to look a real conker, it had a lace drilled through it like a real conker. Worse, one of Jakins’ jobs is to help select the conkers, drill holes in them, and string them to laces before the competition.
The ensuing media furore was unlike anything the conkers world had ever seen.
What Are Conkers?
Conkers is a classic British game played with the seeds of horse chestnut trees, which are threaded onto a string and swung in battle to smash your opponent’s conker. It’s a beloved schoolyard tradition that dates back to the 19th century, combining skill, luck, and plenty of smashed chestnuts.
The Britishness of Conkers
Few things are as quintessentially British as conkers. Picture a crisp autumn day, scarves wrapped tight, and the sound of chestnuts colliding. Conkers evokes a deep sense of nostalgia for childhood playgrounds and country fairs, but its popularity in schools has largely waned with passing years. Some schools have even banned conkers for health and safety reasons.
The World Conkers Championships and their gonzo counterpart, the Peckham Conkers Championship, prove that there is an enduring love for the quaint game. And the recent media furore may only revive it further.
The Rules of Conkers (In a Nutshell)
The aim is simple: smash your opponent’s conker before they smash yours. Here’s a quick rundown of the rules at the World Conker Championships:
Blind Selection: Players pick their conker blindly from a bag and can reject up to three choices.
String Length: A minimum of 8 inches (20 cm) of string must separate your hand and the conker.
Taking Turns: Players take alternate strikes, trying to break their opponent’s conker with reasonable force.
Winning: The game ends when one conker is fully smashed.
Tiebreakers: If both conkers break, new ones are drawn and the game restarts.
If any of you are curious about the full set of official rules, read them here.
So who covered the story?
The New York Times. The BBC. The Guardian. Even Vice Magazine. All wrote about it.
The story of a veteran competitor maybe cheating to win at such an out of the way sport generated media coverage one would expect for a cheating scandal at a major football match.
British readers may have been amazed to learn there was a World Conkers Championships. American readers may have been amazed to learn there was such a thing as conkers.
But the impetus behind this global attention was the same: did an athlete, especially a gentleman in his 80s, cheat to win? The fundamental desire to win, the pressure surrounding competition, the revelation of a cheater and the inner workings of their schemes - those building blocks of a good story have been around for millennia.
Jakins’ name was published everywhere: not as a winner, but as a potential cheater. More controversy soon followed. It was found that Jakins’ daughter, Fee Aylmore, had won the 2022 WCC crown while her father was a judge. She had tried for 31 years to win.
“If I had sat down to make something up, I couldn’t have come up with this. There are so many elements which just fit together. It’s also timing: a good story at a time of war and miserable politics. We do seem to do well with media stories. Is that because it is a traditionally British game, and because people remember it from their childhood?,” WCC organizer, St. John Burkett, told the Sports and Crime Briefing.
So did Jakins cheat?
Here’s the thing. For such a small sport, the WCC has impressive integrity and judging in place. Video footage showed that Jakins was surrounded by umpires right after his win, and Burkett said it would have been very difficult for him to cheat.
According to Burkett, there are two umpires on each podium for a match for later rounds and finals. There is also a chief umpire, who can give competitors yellow and red cards. Photographers and camerapersons capture much of the action.
The WCC has also adapted rules over time. In 2024, changes included that a player had to break, and not just hit their opponent’s conker. A sudden death element, which kicks in after five minutes, was changed from best of nine strikes to single alternate strikes.
“This was because we were getting winners who based their game on accuracy, rather than a desire to smash the other conker,” said Burkett.
A thorough review found no evidence of cheating by Jakins and he was cleared. Video and photos were reviewed, witnesses were spoken to, and the winning conkers were examined. Two of the winning conkers showed evidence of having been played with. Johnson-Ferguson accepted his defeat with “good grace and sportsmanship,” read a WCC press release.
“It is concluded that it would be near impossible for Mr Jakins to have swapped the conkers unnoticed. The World Conker Championships therefore congratulates King Conker on his victory after 47 years of play.”
But the media frenzy was understandably difficult for Jakins, who refused to do interviews after the event.
One positive note: the champion has been honoured with his own beer, a traditional English chestnut bitter named King Conker, at the Southwick Shuckburgh Arms, where the WCC is held.
So as Dakins sits down to a pint of his own beer, there’s something undeniably lovely about the idea that even in a game as seemingly silly as conkers, integrity matters. And perhaps it’s precisely because conkers feels so far removed from the high-stakes world of professional sports that the scandal resonated.
It’s not about multi-million dollar contracts or sponsorships, but about the purity of the competition.
The proud and noble British conker is in safe hands, it seems.
So is that the end of it?
Well, no. For those who find the WCC too staid and rules-bound, a rebellious alternative has emerged. 81 miles south from Southwick, in the London district of Peckham.
Founded in 2017, the Peckham Conkers Club, or PCC, works rather differently. The PCC works under battle royale rules. Hundreds of competitors crowd the street, wielding homebrewed version of the noble horse chestnut.
They don’t wield conkers so much as conker-inspired weaponry.
Concrete conkers, conkers filled with resin and sewn back together. Competitors wrestle each other to the ground when their conkers get tangled together. Breasts are flashed. Teeth are broken. Dreams (and conkers) are shattered.
A full play-by-play of the insanity of Peckham Conker Club can be found in this excellent piece by Huck Magazine.
Yet Chris Quigley, founder of the PCC, says conkers brings out the best in people. “At PCC we play by Battle Royale rules, which is a Fight Club style approach where 'there are no rules'. Even though last year one guy smashed his tooth, we still play in this way - but generally encourage 'respect', to make sure the players understand each other / their limits etc. It's interesting when you push the responsibility back on the players, as they seem to really get this and people self-moderate,” he told the Sports and Crime Briefing.
The reigning PCC champion, an Italian known as Pietro the Pummeller, definitely “cheated,” says Quigley, as he covered his winning conker in super glue.
So is a clash of champions likely?
“I'm not sure the 82-year-old, even with his Steel Conker, would be a match for our Italian Stallion - Pietro the Pummeller. Pietro's now won two years in a row, and is becoming a bit of a conker legend,” said Quigley.