Billygoats at Fairbairns 2022

The Fairbairn Cup was graced with three entries from Billygoats and alumni this year.

1982 & Friends

Cox	Carole Burton Wright (1984)
Stroke	Dan George (1979)
7	Ian Clarke (1984)
6	David Wright (1982)
5	Robert Doe (1981)
4	James Kelly (1981)
3	Richard Charrington (1981)
2	Chris Thomas (1980)
Bow	Constantin Kilcher (2018)
Coach	David Seddon

It was, of course, the 40th anniversary of the only time Fitz ever won the senior race, back in 1982, as detailed in here early-1980s-with-dan-george-and-kathryn-ogilvy-spink/ , so we thought it was only fair to put the team back together. Sadly two of our number were “lost goats” (Hilary Farnworth and Geoff Bindley) and two were suffering the ravages of time (Ric Clayton and Martyn Easton) so we were only 5 and in need of some substitutes. As three of our number hadn’t rowed since the 30th anniversary (or since College in one case) we needed some supersubs to help us make it down the course. Luckily we were able to call upon current President Ian Clarke (3 Blues), past President Carole Burton Wright (Blue), past Captain of FCBC David Wright (University Lightweights, though not sure he’d make the weight these days) and, last but not least, recent graduate and current PhD student, Constantin Kilcher (no University rowing advantage but more than 3 decades of time advantage). With these on board surely we could shine, if we were perhaps unlikely to get a second win.

After the traditional 7am practice outing (I was pleasantly amazed everyone made it on time), Constantin took us to a nearby greasy spoon and gave us a taste of the sort of hearty breakfast the young people like.

Suitably and healthily fortified, we set off back to the boathouse where the last crews in the previous division, including the other Billygoat crew (see below), had still not left. Eventually we boated, and set off down towards the start, now moved to Jesus Boathouse, making it a really rather short race compared with back in our day.

David Seddon’s advice in 1982 was go “off as hard as you can and try to keep going until the end”. We were not convinced that this would work again given our greater age and girth, so we abandoned the “go off as hard as you can” bit but decided to at least try to “keep going until the end”.

During the race, cox Carole focused on one main theme: that the rating should be closer to 26 than 30, in order for us to make it to the bottom of the river. She was strongly supported in this by 7 but there was some dissent among the rest of the crew who preferred a slightly higher rating, in particular, on the slide. Thus we had about 10 or 12 calls of “down 2” with no “up”s and yet never quite reached the sunlit lowlands of 26 strokes per minute. After the race was safely over, stroke expressed the opinion that we might have gone a few seconds faster (about 12 seconds faster would have been nice!) if we had let it come up to 29 or 30 but cox was very clear that this would have been extremely unwise as we might not have made it to Baits Bite.

Our bank party took some nice videos in which the crew looked pretty good rowing together – a very creditable performance, especially by those who had not rowed for a while. Thanks to the subs for enabling us to race and helping us to race well, and to David Seddon for his energetic bank partying.

Sadly, I was unable to load these videos on WordPress (either due to not having paid for an upgrade or lack of competence, I am not sure which) but they are on the Billygoats Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/448152778608100

Not the 1982 Reunion Crew

Cox	Carole Burton Wright (1984)
Stroke	Alan Alcock (1988)
7	Neil Gardner (1977)
6	Tom Watt
5	Simon Cole (1978)
4	Clive Woodman (1977)
3	David Birtwhistle (1966)
2	John Roberts (1966)
Bow	Adrian Tollett (1972)

Adrian Tollett, Billygoats Rowing Coordinator, always organises a crew for the Fairbairns, and this year was no different, though he picked a different name. Simon Cole writes:

7 a.m. on a chilly December morning. The River Cam cloaked in a fog rolling in off the fens and bringing back memories of those early morning winter training outings before lectures (or, for those reading English, a return to bed).

The Billygoats mustered three alumni VIIIs for the 2022 Fairbairns Cup – one women’s crew and two men’s crews. A healthy internal rivalry was assured.

Both men’s crews repaired for breakfast after pragmatically brief training outings.

First off was Not the 1982 Reunion Crew, perhaps better identified from its tactical approach as Long & Languid, with possible overemphasis on the langour. Carol Burton skilfully coxed and coaxed L&L into maintaining a striking rate of 28 and L&L was relieved to reach the Little Bridge in a time of 18m 19s. The only disappointment was that unlike one of its peer alumni crews, it had omitted to lay in a bottle of port at the finish. Carol was back in action as cox of 1982 and Friends. Our 1982 heroes elected for a Short but Pugnacious strategy. S&P outperformed L&L on the day.

Alumnae

A women’s crew of recent graduates also took part.

Cox	Emily Young (2015)
Stroke	Helen Fishwick (2014)
7	Maisie Matthews (2018)
6	Rhiannon Philps (2014)
5	Andrea Stefkova (2012)
4	Hilary Wong (2010)
3	Isabel Cocker (2015)
2	Sylwia Mankowska (2011)
Bow	Jemima Gasson (2015)
Coach	Emily Lees (2016)

A collection of Fitzwilliam Women’s rowers spanning from those attending Fitz between 2011 up to graduates from 2022 met to form the 3^rd annual alumnae boat for Fairbairns 2022. We were ably coxed by Emily Young (2015), who has taken to coxing on the tideway since her departure from Cambridge, and the crew consisted of: Rhiannon Philps (2014), Maisie Matthews (2019), Emily Lees (2016), Andrea Stefkova (2012), Hilary Wong (2010), Sylwia Makowska (2011) and Jemima Gasson (2015). We were very grateful to Octave, the current Captain of Boats for his support on the bank to the younger sister of one of our previous men’s captains, currently studying at St Catherine’s for stepping in at the last moment when one of our rowers was called into work!

We had a spirited row, finishing in a time of 18:15, ahead of 11 Oxbridge W1 crews! We enjoyed the winter sunshine on a smooth row home and are enthused to make a return to the river next year. 

Results

M1	15:37
M2	17:43
1982 & Friends	17:54
W1	18:05
Alumnae	18:15
Not 1982	18:19

Pudding Races

On Saturday, some of us returned to the river for Pudding Races. Two eights were formed, with Billygoats, students, men and women all mixed in together. We rowed down with a division of the Christmas Head, faffed around at the bottom of the river for a while, then raced back up the Long Reach.

I don’t have the crew lists but unfortunately whoever picked the crews put the young people in the stern, so the race rating was considerably higher than the day before, but luckily the race was a lot shorter. The crew that appears more often in the above photos won.