They find Conker’s champion with a steel dummy after “wiping out” the challengers | UK news

The World Conker Championship has been hit by a row of cheating after the male winner was later found to have a steel dummy in his pocket.

David Jakins, 82, won the title at 46^th attempt in Southwick, Northamptonshire, on Sunday.

But when the retired engineer was later searched, he was found to have a steel conqueror, molded and painted to look real, strung with an identical lanyard in one of his pockets.

Jakins, who was also the tournament’s top judge, or King Conker, responsible for drilling and stringing other competitors’ chestnuts, denied using the dummy during the competition and insisted he only wears it “for the value of the “humour”.

He won the Men’s Open World Championship but was denied the overall winner’s trophy after being defeated by American champion Kelci Banschbach..

The 34-year-old player, from Indiana, is the first winner of the competition in the United States.

Jakins’ beaten foe in the men’s final, Alistair Johnson-Ferguson, 23, from Canary Wharf, said: “My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that doesn’t happen.

“Now it turns out King Conker had a fake steel conker, so he could have traded his real conker for this one. Or he could have marked the conker strings to pick a harder nut.

“I suspect foul play and have expressed my surprise to the organizers.”

The World Conker Championships attracted 2,000 fans to the Shuckburgh Arms in Southwick to watch the 256 competitors.

The event sees participants go head-to-head using conquerors strung on a rope in an attempt to crush their opponent’s nut. Each player makes three alternating blows to the opponent’s chestnut.

Conkers fan David Glew, 78, from Lincoln, said: “As if it wasn’t suspicious enough that the event’s top judge entered his own tournament and won, he’s also wiped the nuts off his opponents in one fell swoop and then they found him with a metal conqueror.

“The question that has to be asked is: how has he won now, having never won before?

‘Everything is crazy. It stinks and needs to be properly investigated to save our game from scandal.”

Jakins, from Warmington, Northamptonshire, is the oldest winner of the tournament, in what is expected to be his last year competing.

He said: “I was found with the steel conqueror in my pocket but I only carry it with me for humor value and I didn’t use it during the event.

‘Yes, I helped prepare the conkers before the tournament. But this is not a cheat or a workaround, and I didn’t mark the strings. I just tried to hit hard and somehow I ended up winning.”

St John Burkett, a spokesman for the World Conker Championship, confirmed that allegations of cheating are being investigated.

He said: “There have been allegations of foul play that King Conker somehow switched his real conker for the metal he later found in his pocket.

‘Players select conkers from a bag before each round. There are also suggestions that King Conker had scored the strings from harder walnuts. We can confirm that he was involved in the drilling and fitting of the nuts prior to the event.

“We are investigating.”

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