March 20, 2012
North of England Head of the River
Well! Following a lack lustre performance at Runcorn Head in February the Grosvenor Rowing Club Masters D crew, in which I have been rowing throughout this winter, managed, against all expectations, to pull a result out of the bag at the North of England Head of the River Race, held here in Chester on the River Dee on Saturday, 10th March 2012. For us this is the biggest race in our annual calendar so we were really pleased. And we were the only crew in our club to win anything on the day so doubly pleased!
Despite a near crab being caught on the final bend, we managed to turn the tables on Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club, who beat us by 20 seconds at Runcorn, and we also held off a challenge from a strong Tees RC crew by a couple of seconds, taking the title with a combination of people in the boat who had not rowed together at all this year, possibly not ever, although we have been rowing together as a squad for a number of years and this group of people was technically very competent and obviously fit too.
So pats on the back all round and great relief for our coach, Ad Gideonse, who has been frustrated this year (his first with us) by the number of people in the squad who have become unavailable through injury and work commitments etc. One of these injured was Brian Chapman who took the nice twinkly photo above.
Crew:
Bow: Paul Larby
2: Ian Tweedie
3: Me (Steve Walker)
4: Colin Morris
5: Mike Allwood (club capt.)
6: Tim Howe
7: Jez Perkins
Str: Jeremy Lush
Cox: Alan Hardman
I'm now committing myself to racing in my single scull for the summer regatta season. :-)
Posted by Stephen Walker at March 20, 2012 01:41 PM