CC is on the extreme right.
First rowing prize in 1979 at Oxford
ROWING: Somehow, I’ve managed to survive a 20-year sports career, spanning badminton, tennis and rowing.
I had tinkered with rowing in my teens, but it wasn’t until the late 1970s that I began to take it more seriously. In my third year at Oxford Polytechnic, a trio of established schoolboy rowers thought it might be a good idea to plonk me in the stroke seat of a ‘four’ one day and the rest, as they say, is history.
Unwittingly, I had become the first stroke of the newly created Oxford Polytechnic Boat Club, being awarded a blade at the end of the season after stroking a succession of pairs, fours and eights. At the time, you don’t realise the significance of such a period in your life, especially in the shadow of the more august institution down the road.
But OPBC became Oxford Brookes University Boat Club, and it’s now one of the sport's 'centres of excellence', producing winners in women's and men's rowing, from novice level to World/Olympic class. There were 16 wins in 14 years at Henley Royal Regatta, and in 2006 Oxford Brookes crews won The Visitor’s Challenge Cup and The Temple Challenge Cup, reaching the quarter-final of The Ladies Challenge Plate and the semi-final of The Grand Challenge Cup — quite a year! However, I still have to pinch myself when I remember how few resources we had in that first 1978-9 season, and see the support and fame OBUBC now enjoys.
A further four years followed at stroke with one of London’s most respected boat clubs, Quintin. When I called it a day because of work pressures and a reluctance to make up numbers each week, I thought that was it, until 20 years later I popped down to Bewl Bridge Rowing Club in Kent.
Recently I became an Amateur Rowing Association (Level 2) coach. Big news for 2006 was Bewl rowers Chris Andrews and chum Clint Evans winning the 2005 Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race — and in record time!
This is a huge achievement. The race is one of the world's toughest nautical challenges! Check out their web site. Whilst you’re at it, pop a few pennies into the charities’ coffers — The Parkinson’s Disease Society, and The National Autism Society. They deserve it.
