Sunbury Regatta report 2011

Hi All

We went to Sunbury Regatta with one ambition in mind, to win the Victor Ludorum "the winner of the games", a prize that alluded us last year by one point. DSPC had held this trophy for the last 10 years, so they weren't going to give it up lightly & this meant that we had to succeed across all Club events, Skiffing, Punting & even Dongling to achieve our goal.

Our plan was to enter as many events as we could given the status range of our squad & we'd even entered the Thames Cutter Race, which unfortunately was cancelled due to lack of other entries. And as if we hadn't got a big enough hill to climb I thought we'd resurrect our entry in the Tug-of-War just for the hell of it. Was this to be a step too far?

All started according to plan with the squad reaching an amazing 14 Skiffing finals out of the 16 events entered, 1 out of the 3 Punting, & also the Dongola African Shield.

On a day that threatened occasionally to repeat last year's rainfest, we were very lucky that it stayed fine all day & allowed us to not only enjoy the day's racing but also the stalls around the Sunbury site. Our squad, now maturing in experience & led by our illustrious President, produced an outstanding effort resulting in a plethora of wins as follows:

Keith Shore & Janet Mehers coxed John Previte Mixed Veteran Doubles

Caroline Matthews & Lesley Russell coxed Heather Bateman Ladies Novice Doubles

Caroline Matthews Ladies Novice Singles

Simeon Wishlade & Robin Potter coxed Lesley Russell Gents Novice Doubles

Caroline Matthews & Dave Strassburg coxed Amanda Leach Ladies Novice Doubles

Robin Potter Gents Novice Singles

Without taking anything away from our crews above, special mention should be made regarding the further wins from:

First Singles win -

Henry Roffey Gents Novice Restricted Singles

First & second pot wins for Clare Officer -

Sangeetha Iengar & Clare Officer coxed Heather Bateman Ladies Novice Restricted Doubles

Giles Sutton & Clare Officer coxed Sangeetha Iengar Mixed Novice Restricted Doubles

First race & win for Markus -

Markus Widmer & Sangeetha Iengar, coxed Heather Bateman Mixed Junior Double

Although the 'Veteran' Dongola team showed that a steady hand & a controlled paddle was the better of our more erratic 'Youngster's' crew in the first heat, the Vets were finally outclassed by a superior display from the local SSPC crew who justly took the Dongola African Shield. Ah well you can't win everything going.

As you can see that after all the racing concluded the tally for the day stood at 9 Ormiston & 1 Veterans Pennant points. When we started the day we were trailing DSPC at the top of the Ormiston League by 5 points, so could we close this gap as well as winning the main prize?

Take a look at where we are now

But what of the Victor Ludorum?

The Skiff Club 10 points v DSPC 8 points     We've done it!

Clear the space behind the bar in the Clubhouse because we have a big trophy coming that needs pride of place.

Skiff racing from our club is very much a pleasure to watch & something that the whole Club can be proud of. I for one am very appreciative of the time & effort that everyone is giving in training, coaching & entering races week after week. We still have 8 more races (excluding the Inter Club races) to go this season & we can't let one of them slip if we're to have a chance to, dare I say it, win the Ormiston Trophy. But for now back to Sunbury ......

Now you would have thought that winning the big one & closing the gap in the league was the best we could have asked for. Well no, not for a cup hungry Captain ........ enter the Tug-of-War team.

We have a big thank you to give to Nick Mattey who co-opted in a couple of big lads acting as anchor men in the first round with our team made up of these 3 gents plus myself, Stretch, Bob & our two lovely ladies Amanda & Jo. Not having a clue about the tactics to use in a Tug-of-War, we were at a bit of a disadvantage but we had a great coach in Stephen Russell & rousing support from the other Skiff Club members to cheer us on to a 2 - 0 victory against the Admiral Pub team.

There were two problems though, first was the fact that we had to loose Stretch & Amanda to skiff racing/coxing whilst we had to go & undertake the Tug-of-War final. The next hurdle was the fact that our opposition, from the Grey Horse Pub had never been beaten since 1991 & they trained every Wednesday evening to stay at the top of their game. Oops! So luckily Nick had a somewhat smaller buiIt, very gutsy substitute for Stretch & I had to grab Sangeetha to take over from Amanda ..... game on!

First pull went to form, the second we dug deep & equalized. A final toss of the coin to choose ends & unbenowingly I chose the favoured end ...... both looked the same to me but our opposition didn't like it. Gray Horse went ahead in the last pull but we held & held & held ground until they started to faulter. Just like Skiffing the race ain't over until that last pull is excecuted & that's exactly what we did. Such was the surprise of our oppositio that they left the trophy at the pub but I'm assured that we'll get our hands on it next week at Walton Regatta. Oh no, does that mean we have to defend our title next year? Arnie says ....... we'll be back!

Many thanks again to all ur competitors & supporters, onwards & upwards.

Cheers

Roger