Newsletter#2, Michaelmas Term, 1995 (17th October)

Some of you will already have been phoned-up this term by Dom Layfield, the Men's Joint-Captain, for the boathouse appeal, but here's his summary of the term's rowing:

'The men's boat club entered three crews for Autumn Fours: one in the Four Oars (open) competition and two in the Pazolt Cup (junior). Under heavy competition from OUBC uberboote, the senior four came a creditable ninth overall. The most impressive performance of the day, however, was that of the 'B' four, which won the Pazolt. It later transpired that one of the crew [Dr. Frank Wagner, one of the more active members of Catz SCR] had rowed for Wolfson in the second division of Torpids six years previously, and who, technically not eligible to row in the junior division, felt honour-bound to declare this and bring the celebrations to an end.

'We had three men's novice eights entered for Christ Church regatta. The 'Social' VIII, which had spent little time on the water, disappeared rapidly. The 'Keen' VIII fared rather better, winning their first two races, and losing only on the final day. The 'Beer' VIII, containing many of the college rugby team, had enough brute force to power them to three comfortable victories before memorably crabbing en masse when a length up in their fourth race.

'Finally, for Nephthys Regatta, we entered crews for the Junior VIIIs and Senior IVs events. Unfortunately, the junior event, which we would almost certainly have won, was cancelled, so the eight rowed in the senior division and lost to Wadham. The Senior IV won two races before losing to Trinity in the final.'

Despite protestations that they were only doing it for a 'bit of a laugh', I heard that some of the Beer VIII were actually close to tears after they'd lost, but that might just be a vicious rumour put about by hardened boaties.

Natalie Waterfield, Women's Captain (and coach of the Beer VIII) writes:

'The Women's Boat Club this term rather ambitiously decided to embark on the training of 3 Senior IVs who would compete on the racing circuit from around 4th week onwards. Unfortunately due to injuries to key members of the squad and some lax organisation this never really got off the ground. However, as term drew to a close and my finals workload grew heavier I decided to appoint Adrienne Gumm as my co-captain and already things seem more organised. There are two new faces to add to the old notables of the women's 1st VIII and the women's 2nd VIII has been completely revitalised. On a lighter note, the women's Keen Novice VIII must be congratulated for their great performance in Christ Church Regatta - indeed one member of this crew has already been recruited to the 1st Torpid. Next term promises to be exciting - as long as Torpids takes place. It'll be hard for the 2nd Torpid to emulate the blades of last summer's 2nd Eight, though I'm sure they'll try hard, and the 1st Torpid have a hard task to catch Wadham, their conquerors of last Torpids, but with very strong crews and a new land-training programme under Sarah Jones (OUWBC trials cox) think look promising.'

Catz had a representative in the OUBC Trials Race held on the Tideway at the end of term: Damien West stroking his crew to victory by 1/4 length. The crews, incidentally, were named 'Simonova' and 'Onatop' - not quite as obvious as the Catz Novice VIII nomenclature and I, for one, am proud to claim not to have understood these names until someone explained them to me. OUBC continue to be coached by Dan Topolski and Penny Chuter. Cambridge had their Trials Race a few days later, but no one seems to be venturing any Boat Race forecasts yet. Another of our freshers appeared in the OUWBC Trials Race held at Henley last Friday: Emily Lloyd rowed no.6 in one of the crews - I'm not sure which she was in, but I do know that 'Power' beat 'Arrogance' by around 2 lengths. OUWBC have changed head coach this year: Pete Sudbury (a controversial character, to put it mildly) is once again running things after an absence of 5 or 6 years. I haven't discovered the fate of our men's lightweight triallists, Jon Haynes and Hassan Ahari, but this Christmas, as you stagger from dining table to sofa and settle down for a long afternoon of steady-state lethargy in front of a nice warm telly, please spare a thought for those unable to share in such pleasures.

This term, it hasn't just been the University crews attracting competition for seats. There have also been 'auditions' for rowing extras in a new film 'True Blue', supposedly the real story behind the Oxford mutiny of '87 (as opposed to the book of the same name), but I understand that, for artistic reasons, the role of the cox, Andy Lobbenburg will be played by an actress. Memories of that remarkable sculling race in 'Oxford Blue' (c.1985) are already creeping back - the one that started down at Radley and finished two minutes later in front of OUBC. Did it star Rob Lowe? I just remember OUBC Pres Lynton Richmond sitting in for the sculling sequences, complete with wig and leather jacket. Come to think of it, the hero's amazing finishing sprint must have occurred just after he miraculously switched to using the Catz sculls somewhere on the Green Bank. Never worked for me (Hellen Newport, M.83, if you're reading this, we're not going to discuss relative performances at Henley Sculls last October, OK?). Filming starts in January. Can't wait.

Finally, and on behalf of the Rowing Society Committee, I would like to thank Jo James for all her help as Head of Catz Development, especially in getting the boathouse project under way. I expect that somewhere in the changeover there's a large file marked 'How to Deal with the Rowing Society', and I'm sure we'll come up with something equally challenging to keep her successor, Margaret Simon, from getting bored.

Anu Dudhia (e-mail: dudhia@atm.ox.ac.uk)

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