Little did we think when we sat down to the Billygoats Dinner with Adrian in December 2023 that this would be the last of the very many Billygoats events he attended. In April I had the sad duty of sharing the news of his passing. It was a shock – I understand Adrian went into hospital in February, was diagnosed with cancer in early March and died on the 25th.
As a regular attendee at College dinners, Osier Holt and Henley he was a well-known and well-liked member of the Billygoats Society. He had the role of Billygoats Rowing Coordinator for many years, organising members to row in the Fairbairn races each year at the end of the Michaelmas term, and other races (mostly Cambridge summer regattas) as and when a crew was available. I, for one, have a couple of masters pots I would not have if it wasn’t for Adrian’s organisational efforts. In December he completed his three year stint on our Committee during which (inter alia) he made a major contribution of time and effort at Osier Holt each June. He will be missed by all who knew him.
2019 Fairbairns crew
2023 Fairbairns crew
Following the news, tributes poured in from dozens of Billygoats who had known him and the Committee decided unanimously to name a boat after him. There was a boat naming ceremony on the morning of Saturday 15th June before the Billygoats Osier Holt bumps party and the new tub 4+ was named the Adrian Tollett, with Adrian’s son Matthew doing the honours.
The new boat was immediately taken out for its inaugural voyage.
The Billygoats Society was represented at Adrian’s funeral by David Curry (committee member and Adrian’s near-contemporary), me and my wife. Andrew Pocock and others from the Surrey branch of the Cambridge Alumni Society and a large contingent from Staines Boat Club attended as well as his family and friends. At the service we learned of his Christian faith, a little about his work (too secret for us to learn a lot!), and his love for the Goons (with “I’m walking backwards for Christmas” as exit music), but a major part of all the tributes from family and friends was his enduring love for rowing – Adrian was a Billygoat until the end.
Refreshments were provided at Staines Boat Club and afterwards we watched as Adrian got his second boat, when SBC named a 1x Adrian Tollett. This time, his sister Celia and daughter Hannah carried out the pouring duties. Not many of us can claim two boats named in our honour!
The racks at SBC contained another boat of interest, as Adrian had sponsored it and chosen an appropriate name:
To finish, here is a photo, sent me by Ken Olisa (cox), of Adrian in his prime, in his customary bow seat, in full flow in the 1973 Lent 4th VIII.
The Rhine Marathon is back in the calendar as a Billygoats fixture and 2023 saw a slight change in personnel. Neil Gardner and Clive Woodman were competing for the 12th and 11th times respectively, our President Ian Clarke for the second year and Simon Cole came in for Roly Beevor.
Our programme started with a weekend training session in Cambridge after which our preparations took a more idiosyncratic turn with Ian powering his coastal scull down the River Avon, Simon shoveling several tonnes of topsoil, Neil climbing a Munro and touring the Basque Country and Clive honing his sculling technique riding a motorbike 3,500km through northern India (pictured).
Wolfgang Wacke (surely now a de facto Billygoat) coxed us once again and we all feel profoundly grateful to have an expert at the helm to steer us safely through the Rhine’s commercial shipping.
Conditions were more benign than in 2022. The nature of the course means that crews are almost certain to face headwinds over at least some of the 42kms. 2023 was no exception but the fact that the wind freshened over the day was compensation for a very early wake-up call.
Clive Woodman took the stroke seat and settled us quickly into the now signature Billygoat Rhine Marathon rhythm. We have learned over the years how to negotiate the sometimes spectacular wake created by the Rhine barges – surfing skills would not go amiss – and persevered well through the more challenging parts of the race.
It says something about the scale of the challenge that the crew builds for the finish from 5 kms out. It was a well-judged effort and we all reckoned we had run the tank dry by the finish line.
We were satisfied with our 2h 40.47m time which placed us 82nd= out of a total field of 161 crews, 5th out 20 overseas crews and 6th out of 8 crews in our Masters F age category. We are still two rungs below the oldest age category and are all keen to see the next generation of Billygoats emerge for this unique event. The camaraderie of the competitors and the hospitality of the race organisers, Ruderclub Germania Düsseldorf 1904, make it an unforgettable experience.”
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:
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 3rd 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.
The Billygoats supported a group of current rowers to go to Oxford. Novice Captain Daan Timmers reports:
The Oxford trip was a great success! We spent all of Saturday afternoon at the St Edmund Hall Boathouse, rotating through the available rowers with two eights out at any one point.
All boats were mixed colleges and mixed genders, and we ended every session with a short bumps-style race along Boathouse Island. In the meantime the others were getting to know the Teddy Hall rowers while enjoying some food from the barbecue.
In the evening we convened in the college bar and went for dinner and drinks together. Most of us stayed in St Edmund Hall, with spare couches and sleeping bags provided by the Teddy Hall rowers. On Sunday morning, we had brunch in college together and then we set off back to Cambridge. We will be organising a return trip in Cambridge soon, likely next term. I’ve attached some photos.
Thanks again for the Billygoats support.
Women’s Captains Emily and Shannon sent this report on their entries in the Winter Head:
Today marked the first races for the women’s side so we thought we’d give you a little update. We had our W1 and NW1 enter Winter Head. NW1 did really well, with no crashes or crabs, and all very much enjoyed it too! They finished with a time of 14:54.
W1 had a great race, and ended with a time of 10:04.6, coming 8th out of the college women’s first boats. Looking at the Lents starting order, we beat the 5 crews ahead of us and also beat Sidney (chasing us). It’s good to know that we’ve maintained the strong position we ended up in at the end of Mays. The attitude and atmosphere around both the crew and the boathouse was really great too – lovely to see some Billy pride back in action!
Now we’re excitedly looking ahead to Fairbairns, with a step up in our training between now and then and high hopes for a really good race.
Saturday October 1st was the 51st running of the Rhine Marathon between Leverkusen and Dusseldorf, and the Billygoats were there again after a 2 year pandemic hiatus. We rowed as a Masters F coxed quad, this time with first timer Ian Clarke (aka The Pres) at 3. When asked to describe the experience for this article, Ian succinctly put it this way: “It was brutal”!
Our day started well with the organizational gods giving us a later than usual start time, allowing for a leisurely breakfast and a daylight bus departure up to the start instead of the pre-dawn routine we were used to. This photo shows the crew at the start: Ian Clarke, Clive Woodman, Roly Beevor, Wolfgang Wacke and Neil Gardner.
As we rigged our boat the weather was already making its intentions clear, with frequent squalls coming out of the west. We set off between showers and soon settled into cruise mode, with the Rhine giving us not too rough a ride until we got to about half-way where the river veers west. Cue headwinds and nasty choppy water. This was our first “brutal’ stretch which tested the crew and slowed down our progress.
Nevertheless we survived that and got moving quicker again until we reached the bridge about 5km from the finish. Straight into the wind again and with the bridge squeezing the airflow faster under it, we felt as though the boat were stopped and making no progress, just rocking around in the rough water! Proper brutal this time, but stroke Roly drove us out of there and then raised the rate to 25-spm to give us a smartish finish in 2hrs 47min (see picture below). We were 5th in our category out of 9 finishers, a performance we are pleased with as we beat some German crews!
Post Marathon festivities were then engaged in at our host club, Ruderclub Germania Dusseldorf, to whom we again owe a great debt of gratitude for their hospitality and support with equipment and the supply of our trusty cox Wolfgang.
Here is a summary of the excellent FCBC results of the May Bumps 2022, with a few historical comments
M1 went up 4 (++++), got their oars, ending 4th in Div 2, the last time M1 went up 4 was in 2007
M2 went up 2 (0++0), ending 14th in Div 3
M3 went up 2 (0,+3,-1,0), ending 5th in Div 5
W1 went up 3 (+++0), ending 8th in Div 1, I believe this is the highest ever position for W1 VIII (W1 IV was 4th in the late ‘80s, but when the women switched to VIIIs in 1990 W1 were in Div 3 – must have been a getting on race)
W2 went up 1 (++0-) ending 5th in Div 4
All crews went up, total result +12.
Well done all!
There is a video of M1’s bump on the last night, perfectly planned to give a great view from Osier Holt, on the Billygoats Group on Facebook.
