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.

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

I understood that was a myth created from a few isolated instances and the medias general desire to wind people up. I don't know why it has died out mind.

The HSE posted on their mythbusting site that it was a myth at a national level, but I suppose individual schools might have done so?

https://web.archive.org/web/20211018040605/https://www.hse.g...

Quote: "Realistically the risk from playing conkers is incredibly low and just not worth bothering about. If kids deliberately hit each other over the head with conkers, that's a discipline issue, not health and safety."

Certainly there was at least one school that got goggles for pupils to wear while playing: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/3712764.stm