Henley Saturday, Day 4: Certain Victory For Some, Unexpected Defeat For Others

Elegance at the start.

Tim Koch writes from Henley:

An edited press release by Caroline Searle:

Andrew Triggs Hodge, George Nash, Mohamed Sbihi and Alex Gregory went largely unchallenged today to qualify for (Sunday's) final of the Henley Royal Regatta Stewards’ Challenge Cup for men’s fours.

The GB quartet, competing as a Molesey-Leander composite here and already European and world cup winners this season, had a length lead by the quarter-mile marker in their semi-final over the French national four. They lengthened this throughout the race and could ease off at the finish.

The GB boat now seem favourites to win tomorrow against the French national lightweight crew and the British crowd savoured the opportunity to catch a rare glimpse of them in action on home waters.

Olympic champions Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic and New Zealander Mahe Drysdale were semi-final winners in their respective single scull events. They now face Hungary’s Krisztina Gyimes and Holland’s Roel Braas in the  final respectively.

GB Olympic bronze medallist Alan Campbell found Roel Braas’ pace too hot to handle in the semi-finals today and was soon three lengths down. Braas went on to win in 7:44. Knapkova also won against British opposition in the shape of Olympic quadruple sculler Melanie Wilson.

“It was not my day today. I wasn’t firing on all cylinders. I felt alright before the race but once I got in I just didn’t have the beans”, said Campbell.

Just before the tea interval the GB women’s eight looked in good form as they beat the Australian national eight in the Remenham Challenge Cup. They now race the Dutch national eight competing here as Hollandia Roeiclub in the final on Sunday.

The GB Women’s Eight rowing as Leander Club and Imperial College London lead the National Training Centre, Australia, in the Remenham Challenge Cup (Women’s Open Eights).

Britain’s lightweight and open weight women’s quadruple sculls crews battled each other in the semi-final of the Princess Grace Challenge Cup with the open weights, featuring Olympian Beth Rodford, getting the upperhand.

The GB Rowing Team’s open weight double scull of John Collins and Jonny Walton, competing here as Leander Club, beat two top South African lightweights, John Smith and James Thompson. They now face the eye-catching French duo of Stany Delayre and Jeremie Azou in the final of the Double Sculls Challenge Cup.

Sam Townsend, Charles Cousins, Pete Lambert and Graeme Thomas from the GB quadruple sculls, racing here for Leander Club and Agecroft RC, were tested by Craftsbury Sculling Center from the USA before moving into Sunday’s final of the Queen Mother Challenge Cup.

St Edwards’ School, Oxford, were convincing winners against Hampton School in the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup for schoolboy eights. In the opposing semi-final two big rival schools Abingdon and Eton College went head to head with Eton taking the honours and reversing the result of last year’s quarter-finals.

The results in full are on the official website.

Images from the penultimate day:

At the start for the Harvard v University of London race in the Visitors’ (Men's Intermediate Coxless Fours). London's ‘2’ man wonders if he can fly.

Harvard’s bow man breaks the first rule of the Henley start: Do not look down the course. It is said that you can see the curve of the earth. A guide to steering at Henley is here.

Harvard – UL approaching the end of the Island.

A promising start for UL but both crews are under scrutiny.

Harvard went onto win by 3/4 length in a time of 7.03.

Achtung Spitfire! In the afternoon there was a flypast by a Spitfire and a Hurricane from the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

Amsterdam Students Nereus from what the normally pedantic Stewards insist on calling ‘Holland’ race Brown University, USA, in the Temple Challenge Cup (Student Men’s Eights). Appropriately they are passing The Temple.

Leander lead Oklahoma in their heat of the Visitors’.

Cornell pursue Oxford Brooks in the Temple. They are passing the ‘hole in the wall’ on the far bank. The ‘hole’ is an inlet crossed by a hump back bridge on land owned by Phyllis Court, a country club sited opposite the finish.

Umpire Richard Phelps has a fine collection of blazers. This one is from Latymer School. The silver badge signifies that he is a Steward of the Regatta.

A close race in the Ladies’ (Men’s Intermediate Eights). Leander Club and Molesey Boat Club lost to University of California, Berkley, USA, by 1/2 length.

A member of London RC shows how to move a boat standing up and facing forward.

In the Queen Mother, the race for Men’s Open Quads, there was an exciting battle between the French National Quad and the National Training Centre, Australia. The French led by a few feet off the start, the crews were level at Fawley (approximately half way) and then Australia went in front. They were level again at Remenham but by the Mile the Aussies led by a canvas and by 1/2 length at the Mile 1/8. They moved away at the Enclosures to win by 2 1/2 lengths.

As the Regatta goes on, so the Boat Tent empties as losing crews remove their boats.

The HTBS ‘Drink of the Day’ is the local brew, Brakspears Bitter. First brewed in Henley in 1779, sadly it has not been made in the brewery opposite the finish since 2002 (but it still tastes good). Note to foreigners – it is supposed to be served warm.

Stout for Sportsmen

Tim Koch writes:

Today, 17 March, is St. Patrick’s Day and many people, Sons of Erin or not, will mark this solemn religious occasion by drinking industrial quantities of Irish stout, most famously that produced by the ‘Guinness’ company. In the past, HTBS has produced several items noting rowing connections to the ‘black beer’ produced by the Dublin brewing family.

A summery of the rowing career of the company chairman, Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1967) was in this post of August 2010. Guinness won the Diamonds in 1895 and the Diamonds and the Wingfields in 1896.

Possibly due to the influence of Rupert, the company often included rowing in its frequently acclaimed advertising campaigns. In March 2010, Hélène Rémond shared some nice images she had found, and Greg Denieffe posted these in September 2013.

I recently came across another of the brewer’s advertisements with a rowing (or rather sculling) content, but this time in the form of a traditional celebrity endorsement rather than the clever graphics and slogans for which the company is most famous. On 6 July 1929 the ad posted below was run in the Illustrated London News.

Bert Barry’s Guinness endorsement (click to enlarge).

The text starts:

One man beats three. This is a unique feat in the history of rowing. H.A. Barry sculled over four miles: his opponents each raced only a third of the distance. Yet such was the strength and endurance of Barry that he beat each opponent in turn. In his letter on this page, Barry shows how sportsmen of every kind can improve their strength and endurance by drinking Guinness regularly.

In his endorsement Barry explains:

And there is no doubt that ‘Guinness Stout’ has done me a lot of good these last four years. It has built my muscles up wonderfully and has given me the necessary stamina – what I lacked before to stay a long distance at racing pace.

It is signed, H.A. (Bert) Barry, World and British Champion Sculler.

Advertising alcohol as a training aid for sportsmen may seem strange but this was a very different time. The 1912 Olympic sculling champion, Wally Kinnear, recommended Guinness and Champaign (‘Black Velvet’) as a remedy for over training. The old professionals would sometimes have a brandy and port on the start line as it ‘settled the stomach’. Much worse than associating alcohol with athletic success was the common idea of using sportsmen in cigarette advertising. ‘Camel’ cigarettes were especially famous for this – as this ad in Popular Mechanics of June 1935 shows.

Camels – ‘The mild cigarette the athletes smoke’. They include William Garfield ‘Bill’ Miller who came second in the coxless fours at the 1928 Olympics and second to Bobby Pearce in the single sculls in the 1932 Olympics. He was also U.S. Singles Champion, in 1930-1933. If he did actually smoke it is not surprising that a contemporary newspaper described him as ‘The husky Philadelphian’. The museum Mystic Seaport’s website describes another Bill Miller / Camel advertisement held by them though unfortunately there is no illustration. The handsome Miller was a natural choice for advertisers and, more harmlessly, he also endorsed Palmolive Shaving Cream.

Returning to Guinness, the advertisement does not make it absolutely clear but the ‘relay’ was a race from Putney to Mortlake with Barry sculling constantly over the whole distance but with a fresh opponent taking over from the previous challenger for every third of the course. Thus the race started conventionally but at Harrods a new sculler picked up the race with Barry while the original opposition to the Champion dropped out. There would be another change with a third sculler, perhaps around Chiswick Steps. I do not know if this stunt was done with the Guinness endorsement in mind or if it was something that the company picked up on after the event. However, thanks to the remarkable British Pathe website, we can see film of this possibly unique event.

RIVER RELAY RACE

Bert Barry

Herbert Arthur ‘Bert’ Barry (1902-1978) was the son of W.A. ‘Bill’ Barry (who won Doggetts in 1891 and was Professional Sculling Champion of England in 1898). Bert was a nephew of the great Ernest Barry and uncle of William L. ‘Bill’ Barry. Bert won Doggetts in 1925, and in 1927 he challenged the World Professional Sculling Champion, M.L. Goodsell, for his title. Strangely, the race took place in Vancouver, Canada, and not in Goodsell’s native Australia. The defending champion beat Barry convincingly. However, on a return match over the same course three months later, it was the Englishman who was victorious and he remained the unchallenged World Champion for nearly three years. Pathe has an especially good sound film of Bert sculling with his brother Lou around this period.

BERT BARRY

Bert with the statue of the great sculler Ned Hanlan in Toronto in 1934.

In May 1930, Bert lost the World title in his first defence to Ted Phelps, the first time in over fifty years that two Englishmen had contested for the World Sculling Championship. Bert also failed in the return match five months later. Perhaps he was not drinking enough Guinness?

Temptations on the Thames

The London School of Economics BC eight clearing Hammersmith Bridge in the 1965 Tideway Head of the Thames Regatta. Only a mile of the four to go! The article writer Bill Lanouette is pulling in the six seat.

American rowing historian William Lanouette writes:

HTBS’s recent and lively stories about “Fuller’s Head of the River Fours” bring to mind just what riverside breweries can do for rowers – besides sponsoring regattas.

In the 1960s, I rowed in the London School of Economics Boat Club eight from the University of London’s boathouse at Chiswick, a village on the western side of London. From the UL boathouse, when we turned upstream on the Thames to row past the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, we inhaled the freshest of country air. But when we turned downstream from Chiswick and rowed to Putney Bridge (a reverse of The Boat Race course) we encountered the tempting aromas of breweries.

Fuller’s Chiswick Brewery

The eight was always lively on the downstream piece, and gliding with the current we barely broke a sweat. But the four-plus-miles we pulled back upstream from Putney were always a haul; worsened by two mighty distractions. Off Chiswick Eyot, a slim island just past Hammersmith Bridge, we caught whiffs of hops and malt from Fuller’s Chiswick Brewery, a sprawling complex along the shore. On the upstream pull we were tired and thirsty – and now made especially thirsty for beer. (Why we seldom noticed these aromas rowing downstream I can’t explain. Maybe we weren’t yet breathing hard enough?)

Beyond Chiswick our lungs and thirsts cleared for another mile until, just past Barnes Bridge, we neared Mortlake and a looming brick structure that threw its shadow across the river. This was Watney’s Stag Brewery, in those days a Victorian industrial hulk. And its aromas were much closer and much more pungent than Fuller’s.

Watney’s Mortlake Brewery

From Watney’s to the boathouse we had nothing more in mind than beer. But after showers, I discovered an English convenience never known when rowing in the USA. There, just off the locker room, was a bar, maintained by the boatman, and with a lovely river view. The workout and its temptations were now resolved!

Happy Arthur’s Day & the Discovery of Guinness’s lost Ad Campaigns

HTBS’s own Irishman, Greg Denieffe, writes,

It is not all going according to plan for this year’s Arthur's Day which falls on 26 September. This is the fifth occasion that the day has been celebrated since been first organised in 2009 to promote the 250th anniversary of the Dublin brewing company. However, leaving aside the controversy which you can read about here, there is always something for us rowing-heads to like about the advertising campaigns run by the company over the years.

HTBS posted a few examples on 22 March, 2010, and of course Rupert Guinness crops up in articles on a regular basis.

Above is an example from the 1973 programme for Dublin Metropolitan Regatta (my first Metro). The strange thing about this is that the coxswain is not drinking a manly pint but is enjoying what in Ireland is called a ‘glass’ and in England ‘a half’ and even that appears to be in a lady’s glass.

A far rarer advertisement comes from 1950 for a campaign that was never used.

This from David Hughes, who has written a book called Gilroy was good for Guinness:

This small poster is intended as a flyer for my new book Gilroy was good for Guinness which contains hundreds of never seen before original artwork images of Guinness adverts.

Since the early 20th century, Guinness advertising has been famous around the world for its distinctive imagery, humour and impact.

For over 30 years the creative force behind many of the most iconic and beloved campaigns were the artist John Gilroy. Mysteriously, in 1971 much of his work disappeared from the archive of S H Benson’s advertising agency. Now, through his investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, former Guinness brewer David Hughes has unearthed a vast portfolio of Gilroy’s previously unseen and unpublished canvases.

Three hundred posters, many featuring classic cars, new zoo animals, American views, Russian and German that were never commercially published – have now come to light.

This book explores the disappearance and reappearance of these extraordinary canvases, presents them in full colour, and tells the story of Gilroy, the man behind the advertising legacy.

Thanks to David HTBS can celebrate Arthur’s Day in style with a poster that Tom Weil might approve of!

Oxford: Beer, Boathouses and Barges

A coxed four on the Isis with Christ Church Meadow in the background. Christ Church (one of the forty-four colleges or halls that together comprise the University of Oxford) was founded in 1524 and alumni include Sir Christopher Wren, John Locke, John Wesley, William Penn, W. H. Auden and Lewis Carrol. Of these, only Carrol rowed (though Penn did found one of the great rowing States).

Tim Koch writes from London,

Just over a year ago I visited the Cambridge Lent Bumps where I was particularly struck by two things. One was the madness that is ‘bump’ racing and the other was the sight of the beautiful Victorian boathouses that belong to many of the Cambridge colleges. A report on the latter is a HTBS story that has yet to be written as I did not have time to cover the bumps and to investigate the many attractive buildings that line the River Cam along Midsummer Common. However, on a recent trip to Oxford I decided to investigate the Dark Blue’s equivalent, the college boathouses by Christ Church Meadow along the Isis (as the Thames at Oxford is called).

My investigations started well. On approaching Folly Bridge, the western end of the approximately 2,000 metres of river between the bridge and Iffley Lock used by the boat clubs, I came across the appropriately named ‘Head of the River’ pub.

This panoramic picture shows the Head of the River pub on the left and the boathouses in the distance on the right. Like all pictures on HTBS, it can be enlarged by double clicking on it.

The ‘Head of the River’ sign. Appropriately the pub is owned by Fuller, Smith and Turner whose 350 year old brewery is based near the mid-way point of the Boat Race on the Thames at Chiswick, West London. They are great supporters of rowing on the Thames Tideway and they sponsor the Head of the River Fours and Hammersmith Amateur Regatta.

Most college boathouses are on the north bank of the river and, approaching from Folly Bridge, the first of these that I encountered was the shared home of Wadham, St Anne’s and St Hugh’s. It was built in 1990 and is most generously described as ‘architecturally inoffensive’ though ‘bland’ also comes to mind.

Oxford’s ‘Boathouse Row’ looking east from the Folly Bridge end. Wadham et al have the boathouse nearest the camera.

The next club houses are a semi-detached pair from 1968 belonging to Pembroke and St Edmund Hall. Both are utilitarian buildings, they are simply boxes with a roof terrace.

Pembroke may have a boring boathouse but at least they seem to be making full use of it.

The next two buildings are a pair, more attractive than their neighbours, slightly ‘art deco’ in style, their curving lines reminiscent of a 1930s liner. In fact they were built in 1964, one for Corpus Christi and St John’s and one for Jesus and Keble.

Jesus College and Keble College Boat Clubs.

Three more ‘boring boxes’ from the 1950s or 1960s follow, ironically housing some of Oxford’s oldest boat clubs. The trio are the bases for Brasenose and Exeter, then Lincon, Queen’s and Oriel, then Balliol and New College (typically of things at Oxford, ‘New College’ was founded in 1379).

The last three boathouses on the north bank are the oldest, dating from the late 1930s or 1940s. Their design is uninspiring though their red brick construction gives them some interest. The one on the left belongs to Merton and Worcester. The middle one houses Magdalen (usually pronounced "Maudlin"), Lady Margaret Hall, Trinity, and St Antony’s. The one on the right is occupied by Christ Church and is, appropriately perhaps, reminiscent of the chapel of an austere Protestant sect.

The south bank of the river has only two college boathouses but between them they house twelve boat clubs and include the most controversial building on the Isis. In 2007, University College opened an ultra modern £2.7m / $4.1m structure which subsequently won a Royal Institute of British Architects prize.

University College Boathouse. At least it’s not boring.

University College also shares with Linacre, Somerville, Wolfson, St Benet’s and St Peter’s. This most modern of buildings is on the site of a very traditional one, the former Oxford University Boat Club boathouse. The old building was an ornate, typically Victorian riverside construction which was erected in 1881 by University College who then leased it to OUBC. Sadly, it burnt to the ground in 1999 taking much of the University Boat Club archive with it. OUBC did not take a lease on the replacement building as its crews now train on better water in Wallingford where a state of the art boathouse was opened in 2006.

The other boathouse on the south bank is in a safer, more conservative and traditional style even though it was only built in 1996. Long Bridges Boathouse belongs to Hertford but also houses Mansfield, St Catherine’s, St Hilda’s and Templeton.

By the time I had got to Long Bridges I began to wonder why the Cam is lined with many beautiful Victorian boathouses while the Isis boat clubs have relatively modern and largely unattractive functional buildings? A coach that I fell into conversation with told me that the answer lies in the fact that originally Oxford college boat clubs based themselves not on land but on large ornate barges that were moored along the river in front of where the boathouse now stand. These were employed as locker rooms and to host social functions and for spectators to use as a viewing platform during bump racing and regattas.

College Barges along Christ Church Meadow in Eights Week, 1926.

Like the one above, most pictures featuring college barges seem to have been taken during ‘Eights Week’ such as the splendid photographs here and here. Strangely, the Flickr photostream of the Swedish Heritage Board has a couple of nice images, one of the Pembroke Barge and one of the St John's Barge. As this picture shows, transport to the barges from the opposite bank cared little for health and safety.

The first barges found their way to the Isis in the 1840s and were originally highly ornate craft built to be rowed by eighteen or more men with much ceremony in grand river processions by the ancient City of London trade guilds known as Livery Companies. By the mid-nineteenth century these processions were, after several hundred years, going out of fashion. Luckily this coincided with the rise of amateur rowing at Oxford and so the barges were sold off to become the static headquarters for the emerging boat clubs. They were adapted slightly to their new role but the spirit and grand appeal of the original ceremonial craft was maintained.

This barge belonged to Jesus College between 1911 and 1964. It is now moored at Richmond, West London and functions as a restaurant.

The stern of the Jesus barge.

Some detail on the Jesus barge. It was formerly painted in the college colours of green and white.

For those who wish to know more about these craft, there is a book (which I have not read), called The Oxford College Barges: Their History, Architecture and Use by Clare Sherriff. It is published by Unicorn Press.

At their Victorian peak there were perhaps thirty barges moored along the Isis but their numbers declined throughout the first half of the twentieth century. In 1936, Christ Church was the first college to decide to replace their deteriorating hulk with a boathouse. At the time they were widely criticised though possibly more by the social types than the rowing men. Not only were barges very agreeable meeting places and viewing platforms during Eights Week, they were commonly towed down to Henley to serve the same purpose during the Royal Regatta. The final abandonment of barges between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s were all in favour of land based boathouses. In an article in The Times in June 1956 it was noted:

The boat club barges which bring an Edwardian grandeur to Eights Week in Oxford are one by one yielding their stations along the Isis.... To-day there are thirteen of them.... in little more than a year the number may be six or seven...... Rowing opinion in recent years has hardened against them...... Oxford rowing men are sternly bent on ending the long ascendency of Cambridge; and they feel that an important requirement is properly equipped boathouses.

The Times further quoted RH Carnegie, the then President of OUBC as saying:

I hope the barges will all be gone in ten years. I don’t mean this from the aesthetic point of view, but from the point of view of rowing. Boathouses are more efficient. The disappearance of barges is a sign of the fact that there is no longer a leisured class at Oxford.

Jesus, New, St John’s and Pembroke shared this barge for many years after 1857. The four doors each access the four individual changing rooms – which must have been very small and dark.

Considering their numerous disadvantages it is strange that barges lasted as long as they did. Firstly, anything that is made of wood and that sits in water will need constant and expensive maintenance – something that the Jesus barge at least could not have got as it actually sank in 1955. Secondly, the barges could not store rowing boats and, inconveniently, these had to be racked in boat sheds some distance away. Thirdly, conditions in the cabin changing rooms were cramped and squalid. In a 1936 letter to The Times regarding the then Cambridge domination of the Boat Race, GA Ellison, President of OUBC 1933-1934, said:

Cambridge with its boathouses makes rowing reasonably comfortable for all crews. The College Barge at Oxford makes rowing moderately comfortable for one crew, barbaric for the rest.

Finally, the plumbing in the barges was probably non existent. There were certainly no showers or baths and this extract from the history of St Catherine’s College Boat Club gives an insight into what served as lavatories as late as the 1960s:

The College Barge was still very much in use as a base for outings, and in 1964/5 we actually lived in it for some time to save money while doing long terms of research. We cooked on a gas stove and invented the Bucket and Blade Club for those who shared this probably illegal residence, and its basic bucket sanitation. John Haden, Captain of Boats 1965-1966.

By 1966, ten years after the 1956 Times article, only Hertford, Pembroke, Wadham and St Catherine’s retained their barges. Hertford’s went in that year, Pembroke’s two years later, Wadham’s in 1973 and in 1978 Catz was the last college to give up their relic of Victorian boating.

Tim aboard the barge formerly belonging to Jesus College. Now where’s that bucket...?

Another question arises. Why was the use of floating barges purely an Oxford phenomenon, why did Cambridge clubs base themselves on land from the start? Again, the answer is simple. The Cam is too narrow to comfortably moor barges and to allow reasonable space for rowing boats. Also, it was easy to get the former Livery Company boats along the Thames from London to Oxford. To move a barge from London to Cambridge would require a difficult journey via the sea.

Thus, the Light Blues built along the Cam in a time of Victorian confidence and affluence while their Dark Blue counterparts erected most of their boathouses in the 1950s and 1960s, a time of considerably less wealth and certainty. The difference is clearly reflected in the quality of the respective buildings. However, things are slowly improving along the Isis notably with the new University College and Long Bridges boathouses. It looks as if things will only get better.

As usual, the British Pathe cinema newsreel site provides wonderful moving pictures that serve as a memorial to this splendid (if not very practical) part of the history of rowing at Oxford. Watch it here.

© Photographs Tim Koch

Beer For A Rower?

Last week, when my dear wife had done some grocery shopping, she brought home a beer I had never tasted, Saratoga Lager, which is brewed by Olde Saratoga Brewing Company in Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York. 'Springs' of course comes from the mineral springs in the area which made the city famous once upon a time. Otherwise the city is probably best known for the Saratoga Race Course, which was opened in 1863. There are still many springs in the city and many of them are covered by small pavilions, so for example Columbian Springs.

Saratoga Lager is "handcrafted", as it reads on the label, "with an 'Old World' attention to details & brewed in the grand tradition of the Marzenbiers of Germany Saratoga Lager is smooth & medium-boded with a rich aroma." And, yes, it had a 'German' taste to it.

Now, what has this to do with rowing, you ask? Well, the label on this beer (seen on top) shows horse racing (middle), the pavilion of Columbian Springs (upper right), old town of Saratoga Springs (lower right), winter sports (lower left), and rowing races (upper left) on Saratoga Lake. According to information on the 'six-pack' the packaging design is by local Saratoga artist, Karin Vollkommer, who has used turn of the century images of Saratoga. If you look closely on the label, the boats racing on the river are actually six-oared shells.

And as HTBS has stated before, rowing and beer go together!

Drinking & Rowing

In the entry on 14 April, R.C. Lehmann On-line, Tim Koch writes about Lehmann's Rowing from 1898 and some entertaining text parts in this book. Under 'Training and Diet' we can read about what and what not to drink if you are in training at the turn of the century. Lehmann writes,

Note—Once or twice during training there is a "champagne night," when champagne is substituted for beer or claret and water; but this only occurs when the crew have been doing very hard work, or when they show evident signs of being over-fatigued, and require a fillip.

And Tim rightly comment this, "The inclusion of alcohol at all is very strange by modern standards." However, to my big surprise, I found that 50 years later, the Cambridge coach, Raymond Owen, gives the same advise in his little book or pamphlet, Training for Rowing (38 pp.), which was published in 1952. Owen writes under the title 'Food; Alcohol':

"This should be limited completely to beer, claret, port and champagne. Beer - half a pint with lunch and one pint with dinner [...]; Claret - Not more than two glasses of claret can be allowed with dinner occasionally [...]; Port - Not more than two glasses of port should be allowed at dinner occasionally, and must be limited to certain occasions, such as the end of a hard week's rowing [...]; Champagne - This should be used even more occasionally than port, but is definitely helpful if given at certain times. It can be allowed at dinner following some particularly big effort, and especially if there is any sign of 'staleness.' "

Owen also adds, "It must be remembered that the only real value of alcohol to the body in training is a psychological one [...]"

In the Acknowledgments, Owen thanks the Cambridge crew of 1951, "who acted as guinea pigs." The 1951 Cambridge crew beat Oxford in The Boat Race with 12 boat lengths!

'No Drink, Please, I'm An Idiot'

It seems a major sport event in New Zealand last weekend had a problem with spectators consuming too much alcohol. These drunken spectators abused other spectators and threw full and empty beer bottle at others in the crowd. Am I talking about the spectators at the World Rowing Championships on Lake Karapiro? No, of course not! Although, it was written that “Almost 70,000 spectators attended the week of competition [at Lake Karapiro]. They drank copious quantities of beer in the hot sun and they roared and stamped and banged their seats in an effort to cheer the Kiwi crews home.” However, the writer goes on saying “they did not throw missiles, abuse the opposition or brawl in the stands.” Instead, this was something that happened on Saturday 6 November when there were two matches at Eden Park, which is New Zealand’s largest stadium, Papa New Guinea v. England Rugby League, and New Zealand v. Australia Rugby League.

It seems to have been so bad at Eden Park that some sport journalists in the New Zealand media now would like to ban alcohol from all major sport events in the country. Read two articles about this here and here.

Personally, I do not think the problem is that beer and other drinks are available at certain sport events, the hitch is who is drinking the alcoholic drink, a brawl-loving brainless, stupid dimwit or an intelligent devotee of a good sport, like rowing, for example…

See also 'Cheers, Rowers', HTBS 23 September 2010.

"Cheers, Rowers!"

Beer and rowing go hand-in-hand. This statement might surprise some readers as it is said that alcohol and sport should not mix. This is true, but we are not talking about any kind of drink or any kind of sport, we are talking about beer and rowing!

There have already been some entries on this blog about beer and beer labels with rowing images. Maybe the first one that springs to mind is Guinness from which family Rupert Guinness (the Earl of Iveagh) the famous sculler came.

Both rowing and drinking beer are good socializing activities which might partly explain why many of the rowing clubs in Great Britain also have a bar serving beer. The rowing clubs along the Championship Course on the Thames rely on the income they get during Boat Race Day when both the rowing and beer drinking spirit are equally high.

In some pubs you can find rowing memorabilia on the walls or shells hanging from the ceiling. Even at British pubs in Sweden this could occur. In the University town of Lund, in the south of Sweden, the pub John Bull (nowadays called the Old Bull) had black & white photographs from the 1920s and 1930s showing Cambridge crews on the Thames and the Cam. In the 1990s, the pub also got an old wooden coxed pair which was hanging from the ceiling. The boat had the very un-British name of ‘Ture’. It was actually my old rowing club in Malmö which had sold this old boat to the pub. The name of the boat came from an old tradition to name boats after old presidents/chairmen of the club committee.

During my active time at the club, my fellow oarsmen and I would frequently visit pubs in Malmö (and at one point, in 1992, we went to London for the Boat Race, and for a pub round which lasted for three days…). Maybe, therefore, I thought it would be nice to gather the old guard again at a pub when I visited Malmö last week. I sent out an e-mail, informing them that I would be at a new pub in town, the Green Lion Inn, on Friday between so and so, and if they wanted to meet up that would be nice.

I received three e-mails from friends saying that they unfortunately could not make it, one was ‘stuck’ in Stockholm, one was playing golf and drinking whisky in Scotland, and the third one was on a canal boat on a narrow river in England and Wales – perfectly fine excuses. But the rest of the old boys all showed up, and what a nice evening it was…