Organisers of the World Conker Championships were worried today's event wouldn't go ahead
A wet spring and dry summer affected conker harvests, but today's event is taking place in Southwick.
Organisers of today's World Conker Championships in Northamptonshire say they were worried for a while this years competition wouldn't go ahead, after a lack of suitable conkers.
A particularly wet spring followed by one of the driest summers on record lead to the fears, as one of the organisers St.John Burkett told us:
"They were all small and they were all dropping very early. Now we seem to have redeemed ourselves a bit in the last couple of days, but what's really rescued the competition is we've had donations of conkers sent unsolicited from all over the country, including Windsor Castle, the official parcel from Windsor Castle!
"Just to make sure we went to France and Italy to see what conquers like, they're very similar, but we've got French and Italian conquers as well."
Along with recently collected larger British conkers, St.John says they have several thousand conkers, and today they will use them all.
This years places sold out in record time, something he puts down to the attention the competition gained. It's after the Men's World Champion David Jankins, aka King Conker (pictured) was accused of using a steel conker:
"I did some little videos on my camera last year and then I was a bit surprised to see them on mainstream American television franchised across the whole of the United States.
"We also know that it was at one point the number one trending story in America. Shown right around the world, we we're interviewed by countries or television stations, radio stations in countries right around the world. And we know that at a very, very conservative estimate, 200 million people minimum saw it."
St.John says back in 1976 the UK had a very hot summer. Then the RAF came to the rescue, collected a load from the RAF bases in Germany and flying them back.
He told us why the competition is so beloved:
"It's difficult to say really, but quirkiness I think, is one of the things another one is tradition that people feel in their childhood. The other element is, of course, that it's not a bad news story. So much bad news around in the world at the moment.
"That you can come to us and you know you're going get something that's a bit of a good news story, one way or another."
The competition has been running for 60 years, and today's event in Southwick is the 58th time the competition has been held.
256 people will compete with a 2,000 person capacity today, with matches due to start at 11am. Under 16s can enter the children's rounds on arrival.