Starting back in 1983, people of all ages and abilities have gathered in a pub garden or out in the street to play this childhood game. Originally, this pub was the Queen’s Head but has recently moved to the Jolly Sportsman due to the landlord retiring.
With no one left to run the event, Eynsham village local Alan Craft stepped in to carry on the tradition.
‘I decided to take on the competition and keep it running as it had become a good community gathering.’
But how do you even play conkers?
Well the game of conkers is simple. It is a fight between two people using conkers. You take a lucky dip in the bag full of these horse chestnuts, so no cheating scandals like the professionals, and that’s your conker that will serve you for the night.
Each conker has a hole in it and you place a bit of string, or a shoe lace if you’re a professional, and take turns having a swing at each other's dangling conker. The last one standing wins.
Simple.
Except conkers are a small target and take a lot of effort to crack so when you miss and whack yourself, it hurts!
So that’s the excuse for my exiting in the first round; it was a health choice and definitely not a skill issue ;-)
The current 2024 champion, Sarah Kielar, did not boast a victorious title defence, dropping out in the quarter finals. However, the girl power trend seemed to continue with an all-female final crowning Louise Wheeler the Queen of conkers (in Eynsham).
Alan Craft adds: ‘We raised £124 for Alzheimers UK in the process. Thank you for coming along. We will go again next year.’