‘The sport is in crisis’: Competitors at World Conker Championship forced to harden seeds

Baking conkers has previously been understood as cheating, but chestnuts have been ‘soft and mushy’ this year

(St John Burkett/World Conker Championship )

Organisers of the Conkers World Championship will have to harden their seeds this year as heatwaves and wet weather leaves chestnuts “soft and mushy.”

This decision has been made by the championship’s organisers, who said it may be the only way to keep the games competitive.

Baking conkers has previously been understood as cheating, but severe weather events across the UK have left chestnuts too ‘squidgy’.

The 2023 World Conker Championships is set to be held at Southwick, Northamptonshire on Sunday, with more than 200 people participating.

(Dave Hodson/World Conker Championship )

All competitors need to follow a stringent set of rules to ensure the event is as fair as possible, which includes the conkers and laces being provided by organisers, while laces cannot be knotted further or distorted.

To win, the opponent’s conker needs to be smashed and if both are broken at the same time, new conkers will be drawn.

The decision to harden up to 3,000 conkers in an oven has been met with a fierce backlash from fans.

(Dave Hodson/World Conker Championship )

Speaking to the Daily Star, David Glew, 77, said: “Baking conkers in the oven just wouldn’t be right. It’s nuts. The sport is in crisis.”

Tournament spokesman St John Burkett said:“This is the biggest crisis in our history. The conkers are just too soft and mushy.

“A cold snap last winter, drought in April, extremely hot weather in the last month, and a cool summer has led to this.

“So many conkers have fallen off early due to severe weather and I think global warming may be to blame.

“People will say it’s controversial. But it looks like the nuts could otherwise be too soft to have a tournament.

“They would just fall apart when hit. We’ve never had to revert to baking conkers before. But we’ve never had conkers this soft before.

“We live in hope that everything will be okay this year.”

The winners of the 2022 World Conker Championships, Fee Aylmore and Randy Topolnitsky. (St John Burkett/World Conker Championship )

A crisis like this hasn’t happened to the championship since 1974, when organisers had to import hard chestnuts from Germany.

Last year, more than 5,000 spectators from across the globe attended the event.

Aside from the fun people have at the event, the main aim of the championships is to support charities helping the visually impaired.

Since the event’s inception in 1965, a total of £420,000 has been raised.