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News Archive

2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
2003
2002

31 December

Arise, Sir Matthew: Matthew Pinsent is knighted in the New Year's Honours List, with crewmate James Cracknell being 'promoted' from his post-Sydney MBE to an OBE and Steve Williams and Ed Coode both receiving MBEs.

Best wishes for 2005: somehow, events in the Indian Ocean make 'Happy New Year' sound a bit out of place this time round. In our sport, however, there will still to be those striving for international success, club honours, personal bests, the attainment of fund-raising targets, the recruitment and coaching of tomorrow's high performers, the successful staging of events and the general housekeeping which keeps rowing in good order. To all of you, good luck and best wishes for the coming year.

30 December

Indian Ocean earthquake news: thankfully we have no news thus far of any members of the Scottish Rowing community killed, injured or missing in this horrendous event. I have heard from John McArthur, who was holidaying in Thailand: happily, John assures us he is fine - despite a wave he describes as 'three storeys high' and which has left many dead in its wake in his area.

Which prompts me to remind readers that the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella agency encompassing many well known British charities (eg Red Cross, Oxfam, Christian Aid, CAFOD, etc) and which is working to deliver emergency relief to the affected areas, has an on-line donation facility on their web site.

22 December

Fancy fondling two Olympic silver medals and meeting their owner TONIGHT? Katherine Grainger is visiting Aberdeen tonight to give a talk about her 'Athens Olympic Experience', do a Question and Answer session and meet rowing folks so they can inspect the silverware. Starts at 7.00pm at Aberdeen Boat Club and all members of the rowing community are very welcome to attend. Sorry for the short notice: I was in bed with the cold when this hit my email account yesterday.

20 December

Warnock holds his ranking at trials: at Saturday's GB Senior Trials at Boston, Alastair Warnock of Glasgow RC was again 'top Scot' finishing 8th. This was exactly the same ranking as in the previous trial, but arguably an improvement given the number of 2004 GB team members who were excused the first trial. Ellie Dorman of Clydesdale finished 32nd in the women's open trial (Lindsay Dick did not finish). In the lightweights, Gavin Shaw (getting a last trip out of his 2004 Aberdeen Uni racing licence - who will he race for in 2005?) finished 14th with Doug Murray (Watson's) 27th and Jonny Logan (Glasgow Uni) 32nd. Full results are on the Boston Rowing Club web site

Scottish Indoor Rowing Grand Prix: the SARA Open INdoor Rowing Championships has been upgraded by Concept 2 to be a ranking event for the British Indoor Rowing Grand Prix. This means you can earn points in each of the 6 rounds towards a national title: it also means we expect some pretty serious pullers from south of the border to liven up competition at the Scottish Grand Prix in Motherwell on 23rd January. The poster, racing programme and entry forms for the Scottish Indoor Rowing Grand Prix are all now here - something to focus the mind on working off the Christmas waistline!

16 December

Been there, done that, got the . . . ? Rock the Boat have included some left-over T-shirts from Scottish Rowing Championships 2004 in their end of year sale (together with lots of their other event-related stuff from 2004). On line on their web site

14 December

Back to skool; George Watson's College rowing club celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2005. One senses re-unions in the offing. Former members are asked to email the current master in charge, Jim Ferguson, for details. For those curious on the point, Jim insists that it is NOT true that it was he that founded the club those 50 years ago - it just feels like it.

13 December

Let's hear it one more time . . . : some of you will recall reading my notes from the umpires' commission meeting (see News, 10 November, below) in which I recorded a number of 'hot topics' likely subsequently to be at the forefront of umpires' minds - one of these being coaching from the bank. Events since have led the Race Control Commission to feel they want to underline the point more formally - hence this Notice to all clubs. Like the man says, "you have been warned!".

SPOTY people (no, not Strathclyde University): the GB men's coxless four were, predictably, crowned Team of the Year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY!) last night, with Matthew Pinsent reasonably taking second place in the individual awards behind Athens double gold medallist, Kelly Holmes. Also at the event was Gordon Simpson of Clydesdale ARC who had already been voted Glasgow City's sporting Volunteer of the Year and BBC Scotland's 'Unsung Hero of Sport' (in which capacity he went forward to last night's UK final). Well done Gordon!

10 December

Rules changes at Henley Royal Regatta: in addition to reporting a record surplus from the 2004 regatta passed to the Stewards' Charitable Trust (which funds, among other important projects in rowing, one of the new Scholarship Coaches who is based in Scotland), the December meeting of the Stewards approved some house-keeping rule changes. Full details here.

Scots survive 'Christmas cull' for Boat Race selection: whilst I shall not dwell on the misfortunes of any other Scottish sporting greats not to 'make it past Christmas' in their chosen fields this year, the official Aberdeen Asset Oxford/Cambridge University Boat race site has biographies of those from both universities left in the hunt for selection for the 2005 race - and at this stage I am aware of at least one oarsman with Scottish rowing connections in each squad. Cambridge president Andrew Shannon (from Helensburgh) is a former captain of The Robert Gordon University Boat Club in Aberdeen, while Oxford's Reuben Johnson is a former captain of Glasgow University Boat Club

7 December

Clydesdale Scullers Head results: full results are now here, with some interesting 'ties' for time between different event winners. Martin Holmes (Castle Semple) won men's veteran B in exactly the same 16:08 time as Ian Rice (Glasgow University) won men's restricted 1, while Ellie Dorman (Clydesdale) won women's open in exactly the same 17:13 time as Fran Jacob (also Clydesdale) won women's res 2.

BBC Sports Personality of the Year: the nomination process is now open on the BBC web site here . Plenty for rowing to crow about this year, so do nominate your heroes.

2 December

1 December

Don't believe everything you read . . . In writing my reports of the Glasgow Fours Head I could only rely on the official results and on the evidence of my own eyes from my umpiring position at the sewage works bend (some guys get all the nice jobs!). What I didn't know was the amount of enforced shuffling going on in some of the crews I was writing about. Daniel Shankland did indeed stroke the winning CSRC/SPRC M J16 4+ in Div 1, but he was 'winged' in a crash on the first bend and had to be subbed for the J18 event. Enter SPRC J14 super-sub Andrew Barton (after some sportsmanlike waiving of composite substitution rules by other competitors in the class), with whom on board the crew went on to beat Nithsdale by a cat's-whisker 2 seconds. So now you know.

Scottish Indoor Rowing Grand Prix

Dalziel High School, Motherwell, Sunday 23 January 2005