Unless you are a subscriber to ESPN The Ocho, you probably had no idea the World Conker Championship was this weekend.
Well they are scheduled for this weekend, but there is a problem: soggy nuts have put the world championship into crisis.
According to The Independent, heatwaves and wet weather in the UK have led to their chestnuts feeling “soft and mushy,” and apparently you need hard nuts to play Conkers.
Conkers is a traditional children’s game normally played in Great Britain and Ireland. Two players take turn striking the other’s “conker,” the nuts of a horse chestnut tree, until one breaks. The nuts are threaded on a piece of string, and the first seed to break loses.
Obviously, you want a hard nut to compete, but because of the extreme weather in the UK the nuts are too soft for a fair competition. And heating up your nut to gain a competitive edge is strictly against the rules. Unfortunately, with the soggy nuts, this year’s games is threatened.
77-year-old David Glew 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. 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.”
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