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.

I used to play conkers at school in England, however my children didn't.

The reason? Schools have banned the game of conkers due to health and safety reasons.

I asked my 17 year old this morning and he had never even heard of the game of conkers.

So I think the age of conkers is passing, alas.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones. The boredom of the pre-smartphone era led to all kinds of ingenuity. Kids were bored so they found ways to not be bored. Nowadays everybody is addicted their phone, simple pleasures such as violently smashing two nuts together no longer have the same pull.