Category: News

1984 & more – Sat 2pm

Over the Reunion weekend of Sept 28/29 2024, an ecletic (electric?) mix of half an eight of 1984, two current/recent students, Sally (1979) and Glen (1962, all the way from Canada!), met at the stunning boathouse. It was the most glorious of Autumn days – the sun shines on the righteous?

The run up to the outing was taken seriously, with John putting in daily sessions on the ergo in his bedroom, Richard completing a punishing series of early morning runs (culminating in the Ealing half marathon the day after our outing), Graeme cycling up the Tourmalet for some high-altitude training, and Martin doubling up on his on-line Pilates. On the day, Carole Burton (1984), cox, briefed the crew and under her watch we gingerly manoeuvred the shell (we loved the sliders out of the rack) onto the water and in the necessary wellies popped her in the water.  Unfortunately, Sally also popped into the water as the Cam was over the bank from recent floods and she forget to seek out the edge in her wellies. Sadly, we don’t have a photo. Graeme ambitiously applied copious tape to his hands, whilst many of us marvelled at the lightness of the blades and the comfort of the handles. 

Under the watchful eye of adopted coach for the day, Ian Clarke (1984), the crew paddled upstream and conducted the first of our two turns. From there, with graduate student Rob stroking, the crew had a glorious row down back past the boathouse supporters, downstream to just short of the Plough. Carole and Ian’s measured and nicely put coaching was marvelous, and there were a few nirvanic pieces where the boat glided along.

On the return, we undertook one piece of ‘work’, but in the main Rob kept us focused on slow and smooth rating under 20, as Sally dried out slowly at Bow.  The river, of course, had been developed since our day, particularly on the Chesterton bank. It seemed more magical than all those years ago.  Glen explained that the secret to his long sporting career has been a daily open water swim in his local lake, so that’s something we need to consider in the run up to our next outing in 2034.

Glen said: I am still exhilarated by this row – 60 years on!! Heavy wooden oars and clinker boats have been replaced by featherweight oars, and boats that even seniors can toss up over their head.  It took a long time to get the rhythm back, but the younger members of the boat were very patient!!   Let’s do it again!  

Str    Rob (current student)

7       Richard Hooke (1984)

6       Kes (just graduated)

5       John Driscoll (1984)

4       Graeme Purdy (1984)

3       Glen Norcliffe (1962)

2       Martin Caldwell (1984)

Bow Sally Howes (1979)

Cox Carole Burton (1984)

The group owe their thanks to all who made this happen. This includes Carole, Dan, Ian, Tony and Melody at the Development Office. 

2004 with a bit of 2014 – Sat 10.30am

On the morning after their reunion dinner on Friday evening the 2004 and 2014 vintages combined for an outing.

Helen writes:

As much as visits to watch bumps are wonderful for feeling back involved in the sport that took up so much of our lives at Fitzwilliam College, there is nothing quite comparable to being back in a boat ourselves; sat on the Cam with the familiar sounds of catches splashing and finishes clunking. The alumni of 2014 and 2004 had a blast coming together for our outing on Saturday morning. We were very fortunate that, for once, the sunshine joined us and aggressive swans did not. A few sat strokes, the calls of a cox who you’d think had only retired yesterday, and the reach to ourselves, gave us the perfect toe dipped back into the sport so dear to all our hearts and so greatly missed. It probably helped our enjoyment levels this outing was also a rare combination of not at 6am, nor in sub-zero temperatures, nor with overdue essays hanging over us. Thank you to all those who made it possible for us.

Cox Eleanor said “I hope we’d have had to pull blades in to avoid crashing rather less frequently if I had only retired yesterday!”

Crew list:

Eleanor Brown 2004

Helen Fishwick 2014

Megan  Brook 2004

Alexandra Karavla-Webster 2004

Fiona Ball 2004

Sam Brown 2004

Maddy Iqbal 2004

Alexandra Lazou 2004

Thomas Franks-Moore 2014

Sam sent this vintage photo of the 2004 women’s novice crew, 5 of whom rowed at the reunion.

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 82^nd= out of a total field of 161 crews, 5^th out 20 overseas crews and 6^th 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:

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.