The Club's Results

They were pants. (Matt)

On the 1st, blades became possible for us unexpectedly

We'd expected Christs to hit Caius before Hall hit them, but Christ's Strokeman had collapsed and the'd got hit by hall.

For this race he was replaced by Bruce Perry, the CULRC pres. that year. & They made us work hard for it, but we ground them down in the headwind and got them at the railway bridge. (Matt)

This one was good as they'd panned us by a good 20 seconds at Peterborough earlier on in the term, and had been up 2 already.

Dan Tweedie was seriously unimpressed by being bumped by a bunch of nobodys (Matt)

Who the f*** are this lot?
...Was what you'd have said at the start of term.

Only Kevin, Clive & Alex had ever raced bumps for the 2nd or 1st boat.
Kev & Justin were binned at Christmas from CULRC [in the days when there was no Granta]
Alex was ill most of the term and singing in the Choir most of the rest.
Dewire was a 13st ex-novice with a 6:47 erg. Marnold was little better.

Only Francis & Justin had decent ergs, though both were more interested in beach-weights...

The fact that this crew went quickly surprised everyone, especially the opposition, but was a testament to the fact that "we just got our heads down and did the training plan as Dan wrote it." 

This was Maggie's fellows VIII. We quickly got them to a canvas before Fisher in the 3 seat caught an overhead. I shall never forget the panicked expression on his face as he turned round and screamed at me "Help!". Luckily, we knew what to do [his only previous crab having come in the practise start we had done in our final outing!] and so I was able to recover it after just 3 or 4 strokes.

We then got Maggie nice and easily. AS we were rowing home past them, we showed off our square blades paddling which prompted one of the fellow to tell us to "F*** off". (Ingers)

I beg to differ Chris - was the altercation with the Maggie Fellows' VIII not with the 4th VIII in the May Term of 1997? We hadn't actually raced them, but overtook them on the way home and one of them (one of the seven doctors, the professor or the reverend) used language that would have got John Lydon into trouble. Or maybe they do it every time they race? (Mike)

Corpus II were shit and revenge for thier flukey bump the year before was swift and sweet. (Ingers)

We made the regular bumps mistake of knowing that we were faster than Robinson and so setting out to "row them down over the course". As is always the case, this tactic failed and we only put them under pressure late in the race. Despite getting to zero distance, they had enough fight to make it over the line. We were gutted. Blades should have been there for the taking. (Ingers)

Our failure the previous day was now magnified by the fact that a fast(!) Homerton crew were now chasing us for their blades.

There was a fair bit of talk from the Hommers in the boathouse beforehand and it was clear that they expected to hit us.

However, gee'd up by a stirring talk from John Were we came off the gun as hard as we could and had overlap by Ditton. So did Homerton. We cornered increasingly as part of a sandwich but aided by a fine bit of coxing from Melissa (she couldn't steer for the bump or we'd have pushed our stern into the Hommers) we got the bump before a genuinely surprised Homerton. It was very satisfying but we were left thinking about what might have been if we had gone hard from the start on Day 3. (Ingers)

Spirits were high in the "Joy Of Dawn" (so named due to our propensity for early morning outings) after the training regime instigated by coach Derek Hill ("I recommend you do the training, but it's entirely up to you") drove us to success in the getting on race. Initially placed bottom of the river, we were moved up a slot after a higher crew binned out and CCAT III took our coveted last place. Not being a crew to take this sort of slight lying down, we set off on day one determined to regain that position. Unfortunately we were much faster than CCAT and had to rely on a huge gust of wind blowing us practically sideways into the reeds by the motorway bridge. It quickly became apparent that we were not going to make an easy escape from our predicament and, after what seemed like an age, CCAT rowed past us cheering and clapping themselves at a job well done. A fine performance for what was (for most of us) our first taste of bumps racing. (Mike)

Starting bottom of the river, in a division so bad it no longer exists, we were out to get CCAT III. So we did. We rowed like spackers but it still didn't take very long. Much cheering was done and greenery collected. A lot of bumping virginities were lost that day [nudge nudge wink wink] (Mike)

We already knew that we were faster than CCAT III on day one, so the previous day's race had been a bit of a foregone conclusion and this was the first opportunity to really test ourselves. It took slightly longer than the previous day, but we did manage to push Peterhouse's boat into a tree at full race pace (not very high, but we were doing our best) and snap the bows off. Add in one fine for failure to easy and we were really getting our money's worth. Or not, as the case may be. (Mike)

Oh, the joy of pain. Darwin II, our targets for the day, were chasing First and Third VI - extra incentive to get the early bump if ever any were needed. Unfortunately, they bumped out pretty early on, leaving us a long, miserable, lonely row to the finish. Or it would have done, had Derek not decided to tell us we were going for the overbump on Fitz III. Our (non-)training plan kicked in, the spacking increased at a speed matched only by the fall in rating, and we ploughed down the reach in pursuit of the elusive overbump (and a respectable up 4 for the week). Shouts from the bank told us we were only half a length off as we crossed the finish line. I'm pretty sure now that this was bollocks and we never got close. Still, it was (apart from the horrible, searing pain) a great fun set of bumps, especially for those experiencing it for the first time. (Mike)