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On Saturday
25th October, 16 Cubs from five of the Cub Packs took part in the annual
Lea Valley District Conker Championship.
The Cubs
arrived at 10am and started the championship with a grand howl and flag
break. Shortly afterwards, Won-tolla explained the rules of the
championship. The most important one being that all the conkers and
string would be provided by the organisers!
Once the
rounds had commenced it was clear that this would be a hotly contested
championship. Rumour even had it that a number of the packs had already
practised during their pack meetings. A number of smaller practise
battles were seen to be taking place around the Scout HQ during the
championship, all under the careful supervision of the Leaders.
The Quarter
Finals were held before Lunch, and saw the number of combatants reduced
to just 4 cubs. These were: Luke & Elizabeth from Strathmore; Charlie
from Leagrave and Oscar from Lea.
A nerve
racking 30 minute lunch break was had and then the competition started
to heat up with the semi finals. In the first of the semi's, Elizabeth
went head to head with Charlie. Elizabeth started well against Charlie
with a tie in the first, but Charlie romped ahead in the second scoring
a whopping three hits! Charlie's luck held out, scoring an impressive 11
hits out of 15 tries.
In the
second of the semi's, Luke from Strathmore and Oscar from Lea went head
to head. Both scoring the same points on the first set of tries, then
Luke took the lead in the second. Luke's lead grew, until he had a
tremendous final hit score of 12!
The decider
battle for 3rd place was between Elizabeth and Oscar. With a hit score
of 7, it looked like Elizabeth was going to make it. However the snag
score (where the conker string is twisted around causing the conkers to
snag together) was in Oscar's favour 2 to 1.
So with a
hit score of 11 in the semi's for Charlie and a hit score of 12 in the
semi's for Luke, the final was going to be battle of the titans. Luke
started the battle with a very strong score hitting Charlie's conker
each time for the first 6 attempts. Charlie had a couple of misses, but
then started to hit the target. Luke faltered slightly on the 3rd
attempt, missing each of the 3 tries. Had his run of hits ran out on
him?
Luke came
back strong in the 4th and 5th tries, hitting Charlie's conker on
all of the 6 attempts. Charlie had unfortunately met his match. Luke won
with a hit score of 12 to Charlie's hit score of 9.
Charlie's
skill in the championship was a complete surprise to his Akela, who
commented that Charlie had only recently joined the pack! Charlie
is looking forward to next years Conker Championship and is hoping to
improve on his success. |