They came, they saw, they conkered

“Bite him! Twist his nipples!” shrieks a young woman wearing a wool pea coat as a bloodied Italian tech consultant body slams his opponent into the concrete. An appalled onlooker spits into the melee from the first-floor window above. Hundreds of feral spectators start screaming, before one breaks forward, scales a drainpipe and whorls through the open window in pursuit of the offender. Dark clouds bunch overhead. After a few moments, a bewildered boy of around 15 pokes his head out the same opening and howls: “What even IS this?” It’s the Peckham Conker Championships, of course, and it’s just getting started. 

What began as a fresh twist on the pleasant British game of conkers has swiftly snowballed into a cult event. Chris Quigley – 47, curly brown hair, wearing a furry cat costume as he commands the day’s proceedings – founded the Peckham Conker Club with a few friends back in 2017, after walking his dog in Peckham Rye Park and spotting the mounds of surplus horse chestnuts. The idea for a conker competition was obvious. But Chris had been to the World Conker Championships in Northamptonshire before, and found it all to be rather dull.

Contestants had to stand one metre apart, use a string of the approved 4.2mm width, and keep at least 20cm of string between knuckle and nut. Nut “pimping” was expressly forbidden. With Chris’ competition, it’s a little different. Cheating is encouraged. On the championships’ website, upbeat how-to videos coach contestants on Mortal Kombat style smash moves, such as the Sidewinder, Gravity Strike and the Super Chopper. If the two strings tangle, players can wrestle their opponents’ conker off them and stamp it into the ground. 

As the day kicks off, hundreds of people cram onto the thin strip of graffitied concrete at the back of Peckham Rye station. Most of the crowd are bemused amateurs: couples out on dates, conker-curious local families, and friendship groups in their late 20s and early 30s whose members wear distressed knitwear and waxed leather jackets. But in a corner of the venue, beside a spiked metal fence, a more serious group is starting to gather.

Juliette “Conkertrix” Salzmann was just ambling around Peckham in 2021 with a few friends, looking for something to do, when she stumbled across the competition. “We were just like, ‘This is fucking sick,’” she says. “It’s SO much fun.” She’s wearing practical workwear boots, padded trousers and black leather gloves. As most people are still reading rule cards and queuing up for beers, she and her boyfriend Luca are writhing violently around on the concrete to practice. She’s around half the size of most of the serious contenders for the title, which she compensates for with an uncompromisingly aggressive fighting style.

“This competition will be won by a wrestle. Mark my words,” says Harry, AKA Harry Hard Nut, the moustachioed veteran conkerer who won in 2021 and 2022 before being dethroned by Pietro “The Pummeller” Piantinida. Harry is unable to compete this year — “my back’s fucked” — and so watches over the qualifying rounds like a wizened old boxer who yearns to be back in the ring. With so many fortified nuts, it’s rare that conkers are shattered via a direct strike. All the competition winners so far have stomped their way to victory. And none, Harry says, have done so with quite the ferocity of Pietro.