| NOT SO SILKY SMOOTH? |
You may well be aware, from the advert on the rowing service, that CUWBC are holding a fund raising dinner as a celebration of Roger Silk and Ron Needs putting in 14 long and successful years of service to Cambridge Uni Women's squadwell............
The slug understands that after allegedly being forced to resign by the new "management" Junta, er... I mean commitee of two, that at least one of the former coaches, less than impressed at his appalling treatment by rowing's answer to the women's inststitute, will definitley NOT be going .
Whilst CUWBC try to smooth the waters and carry on business as usual, there is a big ground swell of opinion in Cambridge that they have acted outrageously, but with their new PR officer in place, it appears that not all the facts about the situation are being made available to old girls.
As for what's really lurking underneath all the slime at the bottom of the Cam...? well, there seems to be a conspiracy theory involving all the usual ingredients money, women, coaching, big hair, and big wallets jobs for the boys but you dont want to hear about that....................... do you?
| SITUATION VACANT |
Well, it appears that nobody is prepared to be Mortlake Anglian and Alpha captain this year and so the position stands vacant. The positions of vice captains and committee members were, however, hotly contested, with Ken Williams (ex Horseferry) and Roy Lendrum the newly elected vice captains.The AGM was notable for the absence of some key Mortlake members (including former captains Roy Davies and Kevin McEvoy) who had chosen instead to go yachting on the Solent. While the wind howled and rain battered on the windows of the MAA AGM, consensus among those present was that the yotties would be safely holed up in a bar somewhere. Not so... for the slug can reveal that the intrepid members were, in fact, on their way to Cowes and sampling the joys of heavy weather sailing in a force 9 gale ...
...perhaps the position of MAA captain will now seem more appealing after all...
| THE HENLEY BUSH |
Last weekend, hundreds of committed, hardcore scullers (i.e. the sort of people who do the nutters' head every year), braved the whiplash inducing winds and ventured out onto the Upper Thames to participate in the Henley Sculls. The weather was in a nutshell, shite, and with the wind blowing full, pelt straight down the course with up to 60 mph gusts, it's hardly surprising that several competitors were practising the "one stroke forwards, fourteen strokes back" routine before their sculls were even taken off the trailer...As the day progressed, the weather got worse and worse and it must be said that the overriding impression was that the marshalls couldn't have organised their way out of a wet paper bag, never mind assemble over 200 scullers.
By the time the WS3 singles had got underway, about four future champions had had their hopes dashed and gone under. As time went on the scullers all appeared to accumulate in one area of flora near Temple Island. First there were about 5 people near the trees... then 10... then there were about 25 banked up against the reeds, then another one went in and before you knew it - over 40 scullers had sandwiched themsleves into an area of about 30 square meters facing a massive headwind and with not much chance of going anywhere fast.
As the chaos slowly developed and the weather continued to deteriorate, moods were at an all time low until one fiesty female sculler, maneouvered her way through forest and reeds, trees, and branches and arrived near the start a mere 50 places late and shouted 'Have I missed my start? I couldn't help it I have been stuck in a BUSH for half an hour!'
Needless to say the mood lightened and you could feel the extra energy emminate from people's minds at the thought of what kind of bush it was that she had been stuck in? Several of the male scullers even did U-turns to go and find it!
If anyone can furnish us with a full desription of the said 'Henley BUSH' please let us know, as there have been requests from several male scullers wanting photos of it and the opportunity to see how quickly they could get in and out of the same situation
All in all a great day was had by all, the Kingston Grammer School bus topped it off nicely by completing a wicked burnout as they left the the Henley Carpark...the slug's burnout measurement device clocked it at over 25m long...cor!
Keep those wheels spinnning lads!
| TANKING? |
A nice snippet of gossip from the Thames RC beginning of season partay has finally surfaced. It seems that a mobile phone, belonging to a certain TRC member, rang at 2am post the start of season bash, the conversation went a little like this... (names removed to protect the guilty)"Where ?"...let's just say that the person in the tank was doing a little better than the one on the mobile phone."In the tank with... there are bloody rats in here!"
"Nah you're not, who are you with?"
".....? Whilst she is..... on me, and you?"
| JUST ADD RICECAKES FOR INSTANT EXCITEMENT |
The slug can reveal that Marty Aiken has been signed up as coach for both the GB lightweights and the GB heavyweight women's squad, taking over from, the recently shed, Mike Spracklen who's rumoured to be heading west out Canada way..Marty, referred to "affectionately" by one ex-University of London rower as "the man who sterilised UL", has started off by giving the lightweights a training program, which basically contains variations on the following theme - for the next FOUR MONTHS.
90 minutes steady state - rating 18
80 minutes steady state - rating 18 and
70 minutes steady state - rating 18
oh, except for Wednesdays... Wednesdays they get to do weights (woooooh)and if they're VERY good, they're allowed to rate over 24 for one outing every other weekend...The slug wonders if perhaps rather than trying to bore the squad to death, Mr Aitken is in fact using advanced MI6 brain washing techniques to produce the sort of psychotic lunatics required for international lightweight competition???
| RIGHT MAN FOR THE JOB? |
Mortlake and Anglian Boat Club, now very settled in the old Horseferry clubhouse, have their AGM on 28th October, however, it seems that nobody at the club is willing to grasp control of the rudder, as no willing volunteers have yet put their name down for the Captain's job...This sad state of affairs obviously leads the slug to ponder who might be willing to take up the challenge...
Ian "international" Roots? - or will he be too busy coaching Debbie Flood Kevin "the fox" McEvoy - the silver tongue of the Chiswick reach? or Keith "I haven't been influenced by pillow talk" Mahoney Could be....
| SCRAPING THE BOTTOM OF THE URN? |
UTRC's cunning plan to race dead rowers in the fours head appears to be catching on elsewhere, as Imperial College coach Billy Mason was recently spotted wheeling someone's ashes round the physio room in their clubhouse.
| OUT OF THE BLUE |
The slug is happy to report that sooper-dooper high performance coach Miles Forbes-Thomas, has finally taken off his "I went to Sydney" kit, for purposes of laundry, three weeks after returning home to the UK. As if this wasn't shocking enough, onlookers gasped in amazement when they realised that the clothes Miles was wearing underneath WEREN'T BLUE......wonders never cease!
| BROWN NOSING |
Some more amusing twists in the Boston "UWE been framed" incident, as the slug's been told that Liam 'Canada is the 51st State / Pebble dashed all in one' Krehbiel has landed the assitant coach job at Brown University in the US.The slug reckons that after all the palaver over Boston, the least he could do is offer to enter a couple of University of West England crews as Brown at HRR next year - lets face it, it's the only way they're gonna qualify...
| REMENHAM CHALLENGE 2001 |
The next Remenham Challenge is planned for Sunday 21st January 2001 at 1:30pm, downstream on the Tideway course and finishing outside this year's organising club - LRC.Entries will be limited to VIIIs except for Juniors who may enter quads. Men's and women's crews from the Remenham clubs are welcome to enter, there will be Senior (over 40 points), Intermediate, Novice, Junior and Veteran categories available.
| UWE BEEN FRAMED |
After a bit of digging in the mud the slug can reveal the facts behind the University of West England's foray into international rowing (see below).It started when genuine American, Liam 'Canada is the 51st State / Pebble dashed all in one' Krehbiel , ex-London Rowing Club member rower and Dartmouth Alumni returned to the US and decided he'd quite like to enter his University (Dartmouth) alumni club crew (aka ZOG rowing club,) in the Head of the Charles.
Now Liam is a cunning bunny and knows that an international entry is far more likely to be accepted than a domestic one, so he contacted his LRC ex-crewmates and asked if anyone knews of a UK club that might allow them to row under their name.
One, to-remain-nameless, member of LRC who used to be damned to row for the University of West of England offered to enter the Dartmouth Crews (an VIII and a IV) so long as he got to row in one of them.
Alas, things didn't quite go to plan as unexpectedly, the Dartmouth / Zog / UWE crews got somewhat more attention than they expected, largely due to their Superman t-shirts and subsequently appeared on the TV news and on the front of several Boston newspapers... So much for a low-key appearance.
The fallout is expected shortly.
Incidentally, just to set the record straight Bristol's entertainment at Dartmouth's expense a couple of years ago at Henley is totally unconnected, but the Bristol University Alumni have asked the slug to point out that they've never had to resort to stacking their crews with Yank mercenaries in order to try and win anything...
Elsewhere in Boston is seems that the Black Sheep boys managed to get in the papers as well as on the telly and finally check out an rathr amusing incident that happened at the Riverside RC party, as reported on Row2K...