11/01/2008

Upper Thames Christmas Pudding Regatta

Upper Thames Rowing Club’s 2007 Boxing Day regatta (always known as the Christmas Pudding regatta) set a new precedent by being held before Christmas. The intention had always been that a competitive race for Club members in the early morning of Boxing Day might be a cure for indulgence on Christmas Day and alleviate hangovers in the unlikely event that an oarsman or woman had been drinking to excess.

With a much enlarged Club membership drawn from the very young to the quite mature and of every level of competence from novice to international, the Club found that Boxing Day was becoming increasingly unpopular. It was decided to change.

Saturday 22nd December was chosen but with the same primary objective - to give members through all ranges of competence, from novices and juniors to gold-medal winning internationals, an opportunity to row together.

The names of those wanting to compete were put into a hat and four crews of eight were drawn out at random. A certain amount of “fine tuning” was done to ensure that an eight was not drawn with half a dozen senior men in it.

The composition of the winning crew could hardly have shown more vividly the broad spectrum of rowing there now is at Upper Thames.

The crew was stroked by Under 23 GB triallist Richard Moody, with former international Lizzie Hodge at 7 and John Ewans at 4.

John is 6ft 7in tall weighs an extremely fit 16 stones and has won many World Veterans Championship medals. Behind him at 3 was Sam Mottram, just 13 years old, 4 ft 6 in tall and weighing just over 6 stones.

Full crew : Jeremy Dobbin (bow) Sara Eldridge, Sam Mottram, John Ewans, Ross McGrath-Howell, Tom Carter, Lizzie Hodge, Richard Moody (stroke) and Zara Milne (cox).

A Christmas pudding was the prize for each member of the winning crew, presented by the News Editor of the “Henley Standard” Richard Reed.

Club captain Will Hoodless and Jennifer Hawkins provided excellent food
and drink for the scores of members and friends attending.