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Kilmory Village Hall celebrated the beauty of autumn on Sunday afternoon with the third annual conker championships.
A group of locals, who pride themselves on their conker bashing skills, gathered in the middle of the hall determined to destroy their opponent.
Arranged on the stage was a pile of conkers ready to be bashed.
When the competition started at 5pm, 10 people battled to win their game. A Southend Productions spokesman explained the rules of play. He said: ‘Each competitor takes it in turn to attempt a conker hit and an attempted conker hit must be conducted using an over the top swing. Control is then passed to the opposing competitor.
‘If an attacking player misses with their swing, this is seen as a valid conker swing and control is passed to the opposing competitor.
‘If a defending player moves their conker when facing an opposite swing, the attacking player may have another swing.
‘The game is over when the conker is rendered unusable in further competition.’
In the first round each player had to try and win as many games as possible. Those who had won the most games progressed to the quarter finals.
It was a long evening as some games took more than 15 minutes.
Eventually Lorna Logan, Nick Underdown, John Picken and Eric Dunn qualified for the semi finals.
After a tense game, John destroyed Eric’s conker and Nick managed to defeat Lorna.
Before the final game began, Nick and John carefully examined their conkers for tell tale cracks.
Nick seemed determined to win and after a few hard knocks John’s conker finally gave way.
