Page 24 - Oundle Life January 2025

CONTROVERSY
at the Conkers
For many years, I have
been involved in organising
the World Conker
Championships. I lead on
media, and for this story
was the spokesperson,
chief investigator, and
press release writer. At
the end of the event this
year, ‘King Conker’ (aka David Jakins), the Championship’s mascot, having become the men’s World Champion, and winning with a single hit in the final, showed a journalist from the national press a steel conker he had in his pocket. The next day (Monday 14th October) it was in The Star and then The Guardian. On the Tuesday morning, the phone was ringing, and every time I put it down it rang again.
Conkers is an event which stirs something in people, so that it is a popular media happening. We always have the big press organisations
at the event, such as Reuters, The Press Association, etc. This story was different, and
if you search ‘steel conker’ on the internet, you will get page after page of links, from all around the world, often carried multiple times by outlets. At a conservative estimate, a minimum 200 million people have seen the story. It’s all
a bit surreal, seeing the videos I had taken on my phone being used by Fox News franchised across the USA.
On the first day, most of the WCC established media committee were willing to take on some of the interviews. By Wednesday, King Conker
was refusing to do any more interviews, as his wife hadn’t understood the story was ‘tongue in cheek’. The Chairman resigned (but withdrew his resignation a week later) as he didn’t think the story should be continued.
By the end of the week, the journalist we were working with said that we couldn’t knock the story on the head, as the Sunday papers had their stories written for the weekend. We would have to wait until Monday. Over the weekend, we were telling all media outlets we were not doing any more interviews. On Monday, to give the nationals running the story time to sell it first, the press release went out!
It would be a surprise if anything went this viral again, and the demands were incredible. King Conker had the press knocking on his door offering him first £1,000 to charity, and then later, a well-known American media organisation offered £4,000 (both turned down). It became a nightmare by Thursday and Friday as it was non-stop. I have sympathy for those who have done something wrong and face the media like this!
Ultimately it was a light-hearted story at a time of downbeat news and conkers just hitting things at the right moment.
St.John Burkett, World Conker Championships
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