COLLEGE ROWING AT OXFORD.
_By C. M. Pitman,_
New College; President O.U.B.C. 1895.
If we try to examine the causes of success or failure, of a run of good
crews or bad crews from one University or the other, it is impossible to
overestimate the importance of good organization, good management, and
friendly rivalry in the college boat clubs. In the long run, the success
or failure of the University Crew depends in no small measure upon the
amount of trouble taken and the amount of keenness shown by the various
colleges in practising for their different races during the year. It is
only by very careful coaching and assiduous practice in his college
Torpid and Eight, that a man who has not rowed before going up to the
University can ever hope to attain to a place in the University Crew;
and it is only by trying to apply his learning to advantage in
college races during the year that one who has just gained his blue can
hope to be of greater value to the University in the following spring.
[Illustration: A BUMP IN THE EIGHTS.]
Only a small number of the men who take up rowing at the University
attain to a seat in the Trial Eights, and fewer still, of course, get
their blue. It is by rowing for their college, then, in Eight or Torpid,
that the majority of University men gain their experience, and so it is
but natural that even more interest is usually manifested in the
practice of the Eights than in that of the University Crew itself.
Most of the colleges at Oxford have now what is known as an "amalgamated
club," which supplies the finances of all the various branches of
athletics. That is to say, every undergraduate member of the college
pays a fixed subscription to the amalgamated club fund, and the money
thus collected is allotted proportionately to the different college
clubs. The money thus allotted, with the addition in some cases of small
sums received as entrance fees for college races, forms the income of
the college boat club; and out of this income is paid a capitation fee
to the University Boat Club, which varies according to the number of
undergraduates on the college books, the rest of the money being devoted
to providing boats, oars, etc.--the ordinary expenses, in fact, for
carrying on the college boat club.
A freshman, when he first comes up to Oxford, has, as a rule, made up
his mind to which particular branch of athletics he intends to devote
himself. If he intends to play football, and does not happen to have
come up with a great reputation from his public school, he finds it
somewhat hard at first, however good he may be, to make himself known;
but if he makes up his mind to row, he finds everything cut and dried
for him.
At the beginning of the October Term, a notice is put up for the benefit
of freshmen and others, that those desirous of being coached must be at
the barge on and after a certain day, at 2.30. The coaching is
undertaken by any of the college Eight of the preceding term who are in
residence, and any others whom the captain of the boat club may consider
qualified. The men are taken out at first in tub-pairs or heavy fours;
and grotesque, to say the least of it, are the movements of the average
freshmen during the first few days of his rowing career. The majority of
men who get into a boat for the first time in their lives seem to
imagine that it is necessary to twist their bodies into the most
uncomfortable and unnatural it positions, and is hard at first to
persuade them that the movements of a really good oar are easy, natural,
and even graceful. It is not long, however, as a rule, before a
considerable improvement becomes manifest, and, at the end of the first
fortnight or so of the term, most of the novices have begun to get a
grasp of the first principles of the art.
About the end of the second week of the term the freshmen are picked up
into Fours. These crews, which row in heavy tub-boats, practise for
about three weeks for a race, which is rowed during the fifth or sixth
week of the term. After a day or two of rest, the best men from these
Fours are taken out in eights. No one who has not rowed in an eight with
a crew composed almost entirely of beginners can imagine the discomfort,
I might almost say the agony, of these first two or three rows. One of
the chief causes of this is that the boats used on such occasions are
usually, from motives of economy, very old ones, the riggers being often
twisted and bent by the crabs of former generations, and the boats
themselves heavy and inclined to be waterlogged.
During the last day or two of the term, the captain, with a view to
making up his Torpids for the next term, generally tries to arrange one
or two crews selected from the best of the freshmen and such of the old
hands as are available; and justly proud is a freshman if, having got
into a boat for the first time at the beginning of the term, he finds
himself among the select few for the first Torpid at the end of it.
At the beginning of the Lent Term the energies of the college boat clubs
are entirely devoted to the selection and preparation of the crews for
the Torpids. The smaller colleges have one crew and the larger ones two,
and in some cases three, crews each. No one who has rowed in his college
Eight in the races of the previous summer is permitted to row in the
Torpid, so the crews are generally composed partly of men who rowed in
the Torpid of the preceding year, but who were not quite good enough to
get into the Eight, and partly of freshmen; the boats used must be
clinker built of five streaks, with a minimum beam measurement of 2 ft.
2 in. measured inside, and with fixed seats.
Although I do not propose here to say anything about the general subject
of training, I cannot refrain from making one remark. It is in
practising for the Torpids that freshmen generally get their first
experience of strict training, and for this reason there is no crew more
difficult to train than a Torpid. Most of the men after their first
experience of regular work have fine healthy appetites, and, as a rule,
eat about twice as much as is good for them, with the result that, even
if they escape violent indigestion, they are painfully short-winded, and
find the greatest difficulty in rowing a fast stroke. The Torpids train
for about three weeks before the races, which take place at the end of
the fourth and the fifth weeks in term. They last for six nights, and
are bumping races, the boats starting 160 ft. apart. A hundred and sixty
feet is a very considerable distance to make up in about three quarters
of a mile, and at the head of a division a crew must be about fifteen
seconds faster over the course to make certain of a bump.
Of performances in the Torpids that of Brasenose stands by itself. They
finished at the head of the river in 1885, and remained there for eleven
years, until they were displaced by New College in 1896.
The only other race in the Lent Term is the Clinker Fours. This race is
rowed in sliding-seat clinker-built boats, and the crews consist of men
who have not rowed in the Trial Eights or in the _first_ division of the
Eights in the previous Summer Term. For some occult reason there is
never a large entry for the Clinker Fours, although the race affords an
excellent opportunity of seeing how the best of the Torpid men row on
slides, and should thus be a great help to the captain of a college boat
club in making up his Eight for the next term. With so small an entry
for the Clinker Fours, most of the college captains devote their time
after the Torpids, for the rest of the term, to coaching their men in
sliding-seat tubs, the time at the beginning of the Summer Term being so
short that it is absolutely necessary to get the men who have been
rowing on fixed seats in the Torpids thoroughly accustomed to slides by
the end of the Lent Term, and also to have the composition of the
next term's Eight as nearly as possible settled.
[Illustration: LENT RACES IN THE PLOUGH REACH.]
At the beginning of the Summer Term, time, as I have said, is rather
short, and consequently it is the custom at most colleges to make the
Eight come into residence about a week before the end of the vacation.
The _esprit de corps_ and energy which are shown during the practice
are, perhaps, the most noticeable features of college rowing at
Oxford--a circumstance to which may be attributed the fact that the
crews turned out by the colleges at the top of the river are often
wonderfully good, considering the material out of which they are formed.
The Eights are rowed at the end of the fourth week and at the beginning
of the fifth week in term, six nights in all. They start 130 ft.
apart--that is to say, 30 ft. less than the Torpids. About the same
number of boats row in a division in the former as in the latter, the
bottom boat starting at the same place in each case; consequently the
head boat in the Eights has a slightly longer course to row than the
head Torpid.
The start of a boat race is always rather nervous work for the crews,
but the start of a bumping race is worse in this respect than any. A
spectator who cares to walk down the bank and look at the crews waiting
at their posts for the start cannot fail to notice that even the most
experienced men look extremely uncomfortable.
[Illustration: A START IN THE EIGHTS.]
The start is managed thus: at the starting-point of each boat a short
wooden post is driven firmly into the ground. These posts are exactly
130 ft. apart, and to each is attached a thin rope 60 ft. long with a
bung at the end, while by each post a punt is moored. About twenty
minutes or a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, the crews
start from their barges and paddle gently down to their respective
starting-places, where they take up their positions alongside of the
punts. Five minutes before the starting-time the first gun is fired as a
sort of warning. These guns are fired punctually to the second, and by
the first gun the men who are going to start the different crews set
their stop-watches. The duty of these "starters" is to keep the crews
informed of the exact time, by calling out, "One minute gone," "Two
minutes gone," etc. The second gun goes one minute before the start, and
as soon as it is fired, the waterman slowly pushes the boat out from
the side of the punt by means of a long pole pressed against stroke's
rigger, the coxswain holding the bung at arm's-length in his left hand,
with the cord taut so as to counteract the pressure of the pole, and
"bow" and "two" paddling very gently so as to keep the boat at the very
furthest extension of the rope. "Thirty seconds more," calls the
starter; "fifteen," "ten," "five," "four," "three," "two," "look
out"--Bang! and, except for those who are doomed to be bumped, the worst
is over till the next night. Directly a bump is made both the boat which
has made the bump and the boat which is bumped draw to one side, and on
the next night the boat which has made the bump starts in front of its
victim of the preceding evening. The Eights are the last event of the
season in which the colleges compete against one another on the river,
and the interest and excitement of the college in the doings of its crew
generally find their final outlet, in the case of a college which has
made five or six bumps or finished head of the river, in a bump
supper--an entertainment of a nature peculiar to Oxford and Cambridge,
which is, perhaps, better left to the imagination than described in
detail.
It is a curious fact that, although the ideal aimed at by each college
is the same, different colleges seem to adhere, to a very considerable
extent, year after year to the same merits and the same faults. One
college gets the reputation of not being able to row a fast-enough
stroke; another, of being ready to race a week before the races and of
getting worse as the races proceed, and, try as hard as they like, they
do not seem to be able to shake off the effect of the reputation of
their predecessors. So, again, one college gets the reputation of rowing
better in the races than could possibly be expected from their form in
practice, or of always improving during the races. The most notable case
of late years, perhaps, was the traditional pluck of Brasenose. For
eleven years in the Torpids and for three years in the Eights their
certain downfall was predicted, but year after year, sometimes by the
skin of their teeth and sometimes with ease, they managed to get home.
The best performances in the Eights, as a matter of mere paper record,
are those of Trinity and Magdalen, who have each rowed head of the river
for four years in succession, the former in 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864,
and the latter in 1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895. Magdalen can also boast
of not having finished lower than third in the Eights for some fifteen
years. Brasenose have finished head of the river fourteen times since
the races were started in 1836; University nine times, and Magdalen
seven times. The best performance in any one year is that of New College
in the season 1895-96, when they completely swept the board, being head
of the river in Eights and Torpids, and winning the University Fours,
Pairs, and Sculls. The only other college race besides those I have
described is the Fours. This race is rowed in coxswainless racing-ships
during the fourth week of the October Term. It is a "time" race, the
crews, which row two in a heat, starting eighty yards apart, the
finishing-posts being, of course, divided by the same distance. A time
race is a very unsatisfactory affair compared with an ordinary "breast"
race, but it is rendered necessary by the narrow winding river, for
there is not room between Iffley and Oxford for two boats to row
abreast. Oxford College crews, undoubtedly excellent though they often
are, have been singularly unsuccessful at Henley. The Grand Challenge
Cup has only been won by a college crew from Oxford twice within the
memory of the present generation (_i.e._ by Exeter, in 1882, and by New
College in the present year). Wadham, it is true, won it in almost
prehistoric times (1849), and the tradition is handed down that they
took the light blue in their colours from those of the crew which they
defeated--a tradition which I need hardly say the members of the sister
University always meet with a most emphatic denial.
It may, perhaps, seem that so far I have described college rowing as if
its organization were so perfect that there is little or no difficulty
in managing a college boat club successfully. This is by no means the
case. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, even though it be merely
that of the captaincy of a college boat club.
In the first place, it is not always as easy as might be imagined to get
men to row. Men who cannot be induced to row when they come up to the
University may be divided into two classes--those who refuse because
they do not wish to take up any branch of athletics, and those who will
not row because they wish to do something else. The former class (_i.e._
those of them who, after a moderate amount of persuasion, will not come
down to the river) are not, as a rule, worth bothering about. They are
generally weak, soft creatures, whose highest ambition is to walk
overdressed about the "High," and, if possible, to be considered
"horsey" without riding--the class, in fact, generally known as
"bloods." Or else they belong to that worthy class of beings who come up
to the University to read and only to read, and imagine that it is
therefore impossible for them to row. The "blood" is, or should be,
beneath the contempt of the rowing authorities, and the "bookworm" is
generally impervious to argument, in spite of the fact that he would be
able to read much harder if he took regular exercise.
With regard, however, to those men who refuse to row because they want
to go in for something else, a little diplomacy and a little personal
trouble on the part of the college captain, such as coaching men at odd
hours, once or twice a week, when it suits their convenience, will often
work wonders. Instances of this may be seen in the fact that many
colleges have of late years been materially assisted by a sturdy
football player in the Torpid or Eight, and in the fact that Rugby
football blues have rowed in the University Eight during the last three
years. Another great difficulty which the captains of the smaller
college boat clubs have to face is that of procuring good boats with
very limited finances. The usual practice is to save up money for
several years to buy a new eight, and to continue to row in her long
after she has become practically useless, and, indeed, positively
incompatible with good rowing. This is a difficulty which can to a great
extent be got over by getting second-hand boats. These can be bought for
about half price when they have only been used one or two seasons by the
University, or by one of the larger (and therefore richer) college boat
clubs, which can afford to get a new boat as often as they want one. By
this means a college boat club, however poor, can always have a boat
which, if not quite new, is at least comparatively modern, instead of
being a water-logged hulk some eight or ten years old, such as one often
sees wriggling along at the tail end of the Eights.
Yet another obstacle is there which it is not easy to overcome. It is
often almost impossible to find a trustworthy coach. There is nearly
always some one in residence who is considered capable of looking after
the college Eight, but the ignorance of college coaches is often only
too manifest from the arrant nonsense they may be heard shouting on the
bank. There is only one remedy I can suggest. Let the college captain
secure some member of the University Crew, or any one else who knows
what he is talking about, to take the crew for a couple of days, and
_make the College coach accompany him_. He will thus learn something of
the rowing of the crew, and you will hear him the next day pointing out
the _real_ faults to which his attention has thus been called.
In conclusion, I must add that, keen though the rivalry between the
various colleges always is, it is a rivalry which, by the encouragement
it gives to rowing, confers good and good only upon the interests of the
O.U.B.C., and never degenerates into a jealousy which might be
prejudicial to the success of the University as a whole. The college
captains elect as president of the O.U.B.C. the man whom they consider
to be best fitted for the post, to whatever college he may belong, for
they know that the president will select his crew absolutely
impartially, will never think of unjustly preferring men who belong to
his own college, but will always do his best to serve the interests of
the University.[13]
[13] For further details of college rowing at Oxford and Cambridge, the
reader is referred to the extracts from the rules and regulations of the
two University Boat Clubs printed in the appendix to this book.
[Illustration: THE GOLDIE BOATHOUSE.]