• The start of Upper Thames Rowing Club
• The first HRR crew competed in 1964
• The Gibraltar Week of the Sea
• Boris Johnson back in a boat for UTRC

There can be few rowing clubs which were conceived and created by one man and his wife and which started life with members rowing from the couple's new home in a coxed four bought for £15. And yet this is precisely how Upper Thames Rowing Club came into existence in 1963.

Peter Sutherland (left) was captain of Leander Club in 1962 when he married Diane. He had rowed at Shrewsbury and after the war he went up to Cambridge University where he was captain of boats at St. Catharine's College and subsequently captain of Maidenhead Rowing Club. Later he coached the Boat Race crew for the "other" university and took an Oxford/Leander crew to the Rome Olympics in 1960 when they represented Great Britain. He also coached the Molesey coxed four for the same Olympics and in following years Leander Club and London Rowing Club eights for the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta. He also brought together England's leading rowing clubs to try to reorganise the A.R.A. , advocating a professional secretary and administration including professional coaches.

His primary concern however, was with the lack of success at the top level by clubs in the Upper Thames area; Leander was virtually the only exception. With this in mind he invited the captains of Henley, Reading, Eton Excelsior, Maidenhead and Marlow rowing clubs to a series of meetings from which evolved the idea of having a centre where the best oarsmen from the Upper Thames area could combine in crews which could take on the best from the Tideway and other regions.
The original concept was that just as in the University Boat Race people row for Oxford or Cambridge with the names of their colleges acknowledged, so could oarsmen and women row for a new Upper Thames club with the names of their original clubs similarly acknowledged.

The first meetings were held at the Sutherland's first married home at Oakfern Cottage, 46 New Street, Henley-on-Thames, and in April 1963 it was agreed that Upper Thames Rowing Club should be formed with its primary objective to be a centre of excellence for experienced oarsmen in the Upper Thames area who had national and international aspirations.

Outside of this group of local rowing club captains, it was considered virtually impossible in those days to start a new rowing club but a local artist, Ann Gordon, heard about the idea and introduced to the Sutherlands a local business man, George Robinson, the brother of the founder of Robinson College, Cambridge, who agreed to back the project.

There were few funds available but an old Salters coxed four was purchased for £15 and then an old Oxford VIII - and UTRC was off the ground and on the water with a total of two boats, eight oarsmen and a cox. There was no boathouse and so the coxed four had to be kept on the ground floor of Saragossa House, New Street, the Sutherland's new and much larger home. The french windows at one end of the living room had to be opened to accommodate the length of the boat while at the other end it was fed through the windows of this Queen Anne house on to New Street and the traffic stopped so that the boat could be carried down to the river. While this was acceptable for a four, (just), the VIII had to be kept on trestles against Leander's wall in the Regatta fields because its length could not be accommodated in Saragossa House.

The sponsor, George Robinson, then rented on the Club's behalf the old Regatta boom shed next to Remenham Club as the first boathouse. There was no electricity, water, toilets or changing rooms but the spirit was there including that of the first Honorary Treasurer Leslie Tozer, the manager of the local branch of the National Westminster Bank who gave invaluable financial support with very little collateral. Difficult though it is to believe today within a few weeks boat racks were installed and a hard river frontage established from which the crews could boat.

Club colours had to be chosen. It was decided to use dark blue and white. These colours were selected for a number of reasons not least because they were easily obtainable and wearable and although they were also used by Henley Rowing Club, their oars, like Oxford University's, had plain dark blue spoons. So it was decided to have blades with white spoons. These were not used by any other English club, and they were easy to paint and to touch up when scratched.

The difficulty was to think of a crest for the club. Then one day Mrs Diane Sutherland noticed as she was going under Henley Bridge in a dinghy the carved stone faces of Thamesis and Isis on the keystones to the bridge. They seemed immediately to be the most suitable, meaningful and obvious choice. The original designs by Lady Ann Damer were found above Marsh Lock in the boathouse of the sponsor George Robinson and used as the basis for the design on the Club's tie and rowing vest.

A coxless pair was obtained when a film called "Tamahine" starring Dennis Price was being made on the Henley Reach. Peter Sutherland coached Dennis Price while Diane steered. After filming, the Club was allowed to buy the pair which brought the Club's fleet of boats to a total of three.

In the following year (1964) the club entered its first crew for Henley Royal Regatta in the Thames Cup. The crew was composed of:

• Kevin O' Sullivan at bow (Eton Excelsior)
• Alan Smiter (also Eton Excelsior and the Club's first captain)
• Bill Rawson (Reading R.C.)
• Charles Hawtrey (a First and Third man from Cambridge)
• John Wingfield (Jesus College, Cambridge)
• David Neal (Henley R.C.)
• Hugh Cochrane (Reading R.C.)
• David Mayers stroke (Shrewsbury and Clare College, Cambridge)
• J Hooper (Marlow R.C.) as cox

Subsequently UTRC crews included visits to Esso House in their training schedule, to work with psychologists and management consultants to study what was then known as "systematic thinking and mental strength" - a system almost identical to that used by most of Britain's top sportsmen today.

Since then Upper Thames Rowing Club has never failed to enter at least one crew for Henley Royal Regatta each year and in one year in the late sixties had six crews entered - for the Thames Cup, the Wyfold Cup (semi-final), the Diamonds (semi-final) and the Silver Goblets.

Amongst many other bizarre events in the history of the club was the time in 1965 when we sent a crew to The Gibraltar Week of the Sea. The regatta was a small affair dominated by the British forces, with the RAF and the British Garrison represented, as well as the WRNS and the WRAF in the ladies events. UTRC competed for the Piccadilly Challenge cup against RAF Gibraltar Rowing Club and Societe Nautique de Casablanca (Where are they now - ed). Memory seems to recollect that the UTRC crew won, but more importantly had a great time and enjoyed some splendid hospitality.

In 1982 Peter Sutherland negotiated the purchase of a parcel of land from its owner Harold Duce (to whom the Club will always be grateful) on which stood the old boom shed, by now Upper Thames's main boathouse. Stretching from the small bridge on the upstream side of Remenham Club to a point on the towpath just upstream of Old Blades this gave UTRC almost 400 metres of the most sought-after frontage on to the most famous regatta course in the world - a frontage considerably longer in fact than the Regatta's own Stewards Enclosure.

A loan was obtained by Peter Sutherland to enable the Club to build the excellent clubhouse which we have today. Now we await further planning permission for an extension to the clubhouse.

Membership stands at over 200, split almost exactly equally between men and women. As a result of the Amateur Rowing Association's Project Oarsome the Club has a highly successful junior membership from which we hope the next generation of top quality rowers will come, together with an even more thriving veteran section.

One of the earliest crews to enter for the World Veteran Rowing Championships (the World Masters Regatta) was a coxless four from Upper Thames comprising Peter Sutherland, Sid Rand, Derek Thurgood and Glynne Davies in the early 1970s. They spent most of their time fogbound at Heathrow without ever seeing the course in Holland . Since then Upper Thames veteran crews have met with considerably greater success , the squad winning at one specific World Masters in France in the '90s more medals than any other country let alone individual rowing club.

Crews from Henley College, Gillotts School, and Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities boat regularly from the Club as do colleges and schools from Canada, South Africa, Australia and the United States as well as clubs from all over Britain. UTRC is also responsible for the Autumn Small Boats Head of the River, the Schools Head, the Disabled Regatta and Henley Veteran Regatta.

Now all that is needed are the funds for the new Clubhouse complex...

Boris back in a boat for Upper Thames  

In October 2005 Boris Johnson, Member of Parliament for Henley-on-Thames, relived his days as a ‘wet bob’ at Eton when he joined the President of Upper Thames Rowing Club, Peter Sutherland, in a skiff.

They paddled through Henley bridge to Upper Thames Rowing Club where Boris was the guest of honour at the official opening of the Club’s new boathouse.

Well over 200 people attended, with guests including Di Ellis, the Chairman of the Amateur Rowing Association; Jurgen Grobler Chief Coach of the Great Britain International Rowing Squad and the man ultimately responsible for the medals achieved by Great Britain in the Olympics; and Mike Sweeney Chairman of Henley Royal Regatta.

In a typically amusing speech, Boris Johnson commented that getting back in a boat reminded him of why he took up cricket but praised all things ‘aquatic’, Boris, who was accompanied by his children and his sister Rachel, a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, was given honorary membership of Upper Thames Rowing Club before unveiling a plaque to commemorate the day.

The new boathouse is a simple structure resembling a barn, faced with timber. This design met with approval from the local planning authority and the National Trust who covenant the land on which the club is sited. Upper Thames is fortunate to be located on one of the most beautiful and famous stretches of the Thames and both the Club and planning authority thought it crucial that the new boathouse should be sympathetic to its location and blend well with the surrounding meadows and tree cover.

Extensive landscaping and tree and shrub planting under the direction of the National Trust is under way and includes mature trees which should cover most of the side elevation of the boathouse.

The new facility meets a long-standing requirement to house properly all the Upper Thames fleet. It accommodates over 40 boats including all the Club’s coxless pairs, single double and quadruple sculls, coxed and coxless fours, eights and an octuple scull. This enables private single sculls to be housed in the existing boathouse and means that there are no longer boats stored outside. The old pairs shed has been turned into much needed extra gym space, housing ergometers and weight training facilities.

At a cost of £120,000 including fitting out the new facility with racks, the Club was fortunate enough to be able to fund the build through income generated by letting land for hospitality during Henley Royal Regatta, subscriptions, a number of donations and a generous grant from Henley Town Council. It was an important first step for Upper Thames in meeting its objective to upgrade all its facilities over the next five years.

The club is committed to making the sport accessible and enjoyable. It is Club Mark accredited and a Project Oarsome Xtra Club and part of the ARA Community Club Development Programme.