World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Or are you expected to have to google it?

Apparently it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Yes, I can see how a steel fake chestnut would be an advantage here, though I’m amazed it wouldn’t be instantly obvious to even a casual observer that the look and sound were wrong. So maybe I’m still missing something.

Yes, it is. It’s a game most news-reading-age adults will have played when they were at school as children.

It's a game you play as a kid. This is the first I've heard of there being a professional league.

On the other hand, we also have competitions such as cheese rolling (trying not to get killed by a giant cheese wheel rolling down a hill), so I'm not that surprised.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-6...

I know the version where you try not to kill yourself chasing the cheese. Are you saying there's one where the cheese chases and tries to kill you?