[butterfly42069]

They said he had balls of steel to try that one

For the yanks and elsewhere, yes conkers is well known in Britain. You basically put a chestnut (but its a conker) on a string by making a hole in the middle. Take turns swinging them on the string, whoever's breaks is the loser.

It used to be great fun till it was banned/requires eye protection now. There's an opportunity there, someone could make a perfectly safe conker app. I'm sure that would adequately replace it. /s

[ungreased0675]

How is it banned? Banned in schools you mean?

Because I can’t see how authorities could ban anyone from picking up a conker from the ground and tying a string to it.

On a different note, if you’re just pulling a random one out of a bag, what is the competitive aspect? Is there a technique involved? Or just RNG?

[butterfly42069]

It is banned in schools. As I said in another comment, that outlaws it for the vast majority of players at the place they used to play it.

Believe it or not adults playing conkers or people playing conkers outside of schools isn't a common pass time.

It is pretty much RNG, though you can massively nerf a conkers structural integrity by making the hole through the middle poorly, so there are some techniques. People also used to use thicker shoelaces like in vans, which I think made the centre more solid. I've never run an experiment to verify the difference that might make.

[philipwhiuk]

I doubt it's banned in all schools. It'll be banned in a few which made headlines.

The HSE is pretty clear it doesn't justify it:

> The HSE said the safety risk from playing conkers was "incredibly low and not worth bothering about"

[Symbiote]

It's not banned, but the Daily Mail would like you to think the EU banned another British tradition.

[butterfly42069]

I don't read the daily mail. Try again. Maybe be less partisan.

[blitzar]

Page 3: "Carly 32D, 21 from Ipswich, thinks EU regulations on conkers is against British traditions"

[butterfly42069]

I'm not sure if that betrays more about your opinion of women than you may have been aware.

[Nursie]

IIRC at some point schools decided to put a stop to it (it was a popular playground game in Autumn) because of the possibility of injury.

Or that might have just been a tabloid outrage-bait headline.

[ascorbic]

It's such a persistent myth that a health and safety organisation decided to sponsor the championships to try and debunk the idea. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7637605.stm

[Nursie]

Interesting!

I have a weird memory of seeing kids in safety glasses on the tv sometime around the turn of the century…

Looks like, as with all good myths, there’s a kernel of something resembling a twisted half-truth that got blown up out of hand - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/09/conker...

[bee_rider]

So the game is to test who has the stronger conker by hitting them into each-other?

[CJefferson]

Yes, that's it.

The reason I think this game is so popular is horse chestnut trees are very popular in the UK. For about a month each year, where I grew up the ground would be littered with conkers, both on my route to school and on school grounds. It's natural when walking around to try to find particularly large / impressive looking ones.