The Cods: Paris or the bush?

Greg Denieffe writes:

News has reached HTBS that the story of ‘The Murray Bridge Cods’ is to be made into 60-minute documentary by Australian International Pictures. It will tell the story of Murray Bridge Rowing Club and how they beat the odds to represent Australia at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

When I contacted Wayne Groom, the director of the documentary, he informed me that the target date for completion is 31 December 2014 but that there was still a lot of research to do and interviews to conduct. The project has a Facebook page that has started posting regular updates and a website with further details and an appeal for financial support to fund the project.

Here is a link to a short promotional film to whet the appetite of HTBS readers.

Last May, HTBS posted two articles about the Australian 1924 Olympic eight’s trip to Ireland to compete at the Tailteann Games. Australia was represented by Murray Bridge Rowing Club. Founded in 1909, the club won their first interstate championships in 1913 representing South Australia. Unfortunately, the First World War ended the hopes of this crew ever representing Australia at an Olympic Games.

The Cup presented to the winners of ‘The Allied Forces Eights’ at the 1919 Royal Henley Peace Regatta.

Following the end of the War, the Stewards of Henley Royal Regatta decided in January 1919 that it would not be desirable to hold Henley Royal Regatta that year but that an interim regatta, later called Royal Henley Peace Regatta, should be held. King George V presented a cup for competition between amateur oarsmen that had served in the Army, Navy or Air Force of any country who had fought for the Allied forces. The competition was called The Allied Forces Eights and was won by the Australian Imperial Forces. The Australian interstate championships resumed in 1920 and in 1922 this cup became the trophy for the championship eights and was renamed The King’s Cup. Murray Bridge won the interstate eights in 1920, 1922 and 1923 and the test race for Olympic selection in 1924.

According to the Australian Army Shop there was some resistance to the use of the cup as a trophy for the interstate championships:

The King’s Cup was presented by King George V to the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) Number One Crew on July 4th 1919 after the crew’s win at the Henley Peace Regatta. This historic post-war regatta brought together eight teams representing the Allies of the First World War. Australia fielded two crews – AIF Number One and AIF Number Two – for the eight-oared race. They vied against each other and against the USA, France, New Zealand, Canada and Cambridge and Oxford Universities for the prize.

In the end AIF Number One Crew defeated Oxford University for the prize, having also beaten AIF Number Two Crew in the first round and Cambridge University in the semi-final. The King’s Cup was presented to the crew's stroke, Captain M. C. Disher of the Australian Army Medical Corps before being taken by the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Forces Sports Control Board. The board shipped the trophy to the Australian War Museum.

Despite repeated requests to the Australian War Museum that the Cup be used as a perpetual trophy for the annual Interstate Eight-Oar Championship of Australia, the trophy remained locked away. Capt. Disher decided to petition King George V for the trophy’s release. He sent his petition via the Governor General to the King on October 30th 1920. The last line of his petition reads, “And your petitioner therefore humbly prays that your Majesty may be graciously pleased to make known your wishes in regard to the disposal of the said Trophy.”

The King’s response was conveyed by Winston S. Churchill, who wrote: “His Majesty commands me to inform you that it is his wish that the Cup should be used as a permanent trophy and be competed for annually in the Interstate Eight-Oar Race of Australia.”

In the HTBS posts The Case of CoD v Cods and More on Murray Bridge and 'The Cods' you can read about Murray Bridge’s adventures in Paris at the Olympics and on their trip to Ireland for the Tailteann Games where they competed in the international eights, fours and single sculls.

One of the photographs unearthed by Wayne is this one of The Cods stroke Wally Pfeiffer after he won the single sculls at the Tailteann Games in Ireland in 1924.

Greg Denieffe: Bedford School B.C. v Shrewsbury School B.C., Part 2

Greg Denieffe continues here his story about Jack Beresford and Bedford School:

Bedford School, founded in 1552, and their annual race against Shrewsbury School mentioned in yesterday’s HTBS post was celebrated in verse and published in the School Journal, The Ousel. It followed their victory in 1915 by 3½ lengths. The programme for the 1916 race, in which Jack Beresford had stroked Bedford to victory by 8½ seconds, had the results of previous races between the schools printed on the back page. The first race, in fours, was in 1895 and the 1897 race was the first in eights. The 1915 victory was therefore achieved in the school’s 364th year (CCCLXIIII).

The 1919 publication Annals of Public School Rowing (1919) included the results, updated to for the races from 1916 to publication. In 1918, the schools met again over a part of the Henley course. This race also included Eton College, who won by a fifth of a length with Bedford finishing second, four-fifths of a length ahead of Shrewsbury.

There was no private race between the schools in 1919, but they met in the final of the Elsenham Cup at the Henley Peace Regatta. The qualification for which was similar to the Ladies’ Challenge Plate, being open to schools and universities. They both had beaten three college crews on the way to the final which Shrewsbury won by 1¼ lengths. Rowing at ‘four’ in the winning Shrewsbury crew was A. C. (Sandy) Irvine, who was a member of the Oxford Boat Race crews in 1922 and 1923, winning in 1923, the only occasion upon which Oxford did so between 1913 and 1937. He is most famous for being part of the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition in which both he and George Mallory lost their lives. Julie Summers, who wrote the 2012 Shire publication Rowing in Britain, also wrote Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine (2000).

Bedford versus Shrewsbury
(With apologies to Lord Macaulay)

[A lay sung at the meeting of Shrewsbury and Bedford, at the Summer Solstice, in the year
Of the School CCCLXIIII.]

Ho! Umpire, sound your trumpet,
  Ho! Third VIII, clear the way!
The boats will ride in all their pride
  along the course to-day.
To-day our School and Shrewsbury
  Will race to win renown
from the rushes near the Main Bridge
  to the island by the town.

Each man is robed in colours,
  the colours of his team;
the gallant light-ship under each
  floats proudly on the stream.
While flows our muddy river,
  while stands our old Cleat Hill,
the Great Race versus Shrewsbury
  shall have such honour still.
Gay is a cricket House match:
  a Dulwich match is gay:
but the proud day, when the light-ships sway
  shall be our greatest day.

“Hear,” said the Irish starter,
  “I will say, ‘will you go,’
and if you are not ready
  hands up – or else say ‘no’;
but if I get no answer
  of course you’ll start away.”
All happened quite serenely
  and the best crew drew away.

Of course, that crew was Bedford,
  with three strokes we’re ahead;
quite easily we held them,
  and all their hope is fled.
They raced us to the Town Bridge,
   but after they were ‘done,’
and Bedford did but paddle,
  for the race was almost won.

The Bedford cox quite neatly
  gave Shrewsbury all the wash,
and near the Locks they spurted:
  a “Tommie” said “By gosh,
Oi wish I’d backed ‘em sonny,
  but now my ‘bob’ is ‘losh.’”

Oh, Bedford finished nicely
  three and a half ahead.
They were not pumped like Shrewsbury,
  And now enough’s been said.

Part 3 will be posted tomorrow!

‘The Song Of The Stroke’

There are many testimonies about Harcourt ‘Tarka’ Gold’s accomplishments as an oarsman, coach, Henley Steward, Chairman of the ARA, and sportsman in general. This little piece will celebrate him as a pamphleteer as it is 92 years ago this month his 20-page pamphlet The Common Sense of Coaching was published.

However, Gold was not the sole author of this short publication. He did not write part one, only part two. The first part was actually written by the members of the Oxford University Service Crew which Gold coached for the King’s Cup in the Royal Henley Peace Regatta in 1919. During the crew’s last week of practise before the regatta, Gold writes in the preface, he requested the crew record their attempt “to resuscitate the style and traditions of Oxford rowing after the lapse of five years.”

The only person exempted from taking part in this experiment was the crew’s president, the “pre-war oarsman” Ewart Horsfall, who had rowed for Oxford’s winning boats in 1912 and 1913, and the losing one in 1914. Horsfall also won an Olympic gold medal in the eights at Stockholm (and would take a silver in the eights at the 1920 Amsterdam Games).

The second part, Gold wrote primarily for the coaches of the College Boat Clubs at Oxford as they were believed to have little previous coaching experience. Gold states that it is hard to explain “rhythm” to novice rowers, but writes that “Dr. Warre once gave me the delightful description of rhythm as ‘the song of the stroke’”. Coming from Warre’s Eton and rowing at Oxford meant that Gold’s teaching was based on the orthodox style.

A couple of interesting anecdotal notes are that the Australian crew, which beat Oxford in the King’s Cup final, in an initial stage of their training on the Thames, had their countryman Steve Fairbairn, coach at Thames RC and a renown pamphleteer, to help out. A Cambridge eight, which was also competing for the King’s Cup, had another Australian to assist them, Stanley Bruce of Trinity Hall. (He would later be elected Prime Minister of Australia, and be granted an hereditary peerage, Viscount Bruce of Melbourne.)

After Bruce had coached Cambridge for the Peace Regatta, he dictated some notes which was published first in 1936 as a 24-page pamphlet, Rowing – Notes on Coaching. Both Gold’s and Bruce’s pamphlets are impossible to get hold of today. Time to re-publish them?