The amount of people who on Sunday December 10th 1995 told me the "it's clear in Henley" was unbelievable. As you can probably guess it wasn't clear in Wallingford. More of that later....
You might want to read the first article on Getting Wallingford Head started before reading this one.
The year of 1995 was amazing. Rowing was still quite new to me - I had joined the Men's senior squad at Wallingford and was running and organising it with our head coach Richard Tinkler. We had a huge squad - at one time over forty people. At The Head of the River Race in March Wallingford had three entries coming in 39th, 113th and 238th (although I was disappointed not to make any of the crews). When the regatta season started we had a fairly difficult run in to Henley Royal Regatta in choosing our crews, including our top crew. We were one of the largest clubs at Henley that year with two eights in the Thames Cup, a Wyfold coxless four and a coxed four in Britannia (yes that is the correct spelling). Plus two of the vets qualified in pair in the Goblets. Being so close to Henley, we moved our training there during the week and then back to Wallingford for the weekend (when Henley got busy). It was such as good atmosphere there. The evening of the qualifying races was pure joy (maybe because I wasn't racing!) - especially when the results were announced and we got both crews into the Thames Cup. Unfortunately all our crews were knocked out in the first round with the exception of our coxed four in the Brit - which went on to win the event. Wallingford's first win in fifteen years. And they won in style, coming from behind. Superb.
Throughout the rest of the summer I cannot say my attention was drawn to the head race I had put in the rowing calendar. I kept rowing (including being in a winning eight at Peterborough Summer) and then went straight back into training.
Wallingford Sculls is the one of the first head races of the autumn and again I shadowed Roger Brown who was running the event. At the time I started to think about what boat classes we were offering - all the head races before Christmas were for small boats and fours. There were no events for eights. But at Wallingford we do all a lot of our training in eights - we have such a big squad it was necessary to do so. Also one of our target clubs to enter were Oxford colleges and schools - who all train in eights as well. Oxford Brookes (who had two eights stored at Wallingford) also trained full time in Eights.
So I changed the event to be fours and eights. I really don't like it when some people told me it wasn't possible to run an eights head - the river isn't suitable or we won't get the boats into the trailer park. Looking back I didn't really know if I could run this event, but at the time I was convinced that we could run an eights event and run a good one. I remember rowing outings racing side by side from the bottom lock to the club - intertwining blades a lot of the way (most rowers will have had at least one outing like that).
Then their was the issue of the course. I had thought that the sculling head course of 4 kilometre would be too short. We could extend it slightly (to 3 miles) which would make starting easier. I raced in Wallingford Sculls in a quad, which was actually useful to think about some of the logistics from the crew's point of view. For the sculling head we need the majority of crews well below the start (below a bridge and narrow part of river) with some of the boats able to turn into position easily (if you have raced at Wallingford then you will probably understand that better than I have explained). For Wallingford Head all crews need to be below the bridge first - and the timing and start teams need to do a bit more walking (I did get complaints about that!).
There was still a lot of work to do. I took on so much myself - it was my baby. Publicity was pre-internet - so I printed out lots of flyers and every event we competed I had the rowers who were competing put flyers on cars. On one night I remember typing into Excel all the rowing club addresses from the almanac and then doing a large post run. I left getting permission to almost the last minute - permission from South Oxfordshire District Council to use the car park and the Environment Agency (they were a lot tougher on conditions then - including making sure that the lock keepers were informed with flyers to hand out to boats coming through - IN DECEMBER!).
I was also the entries secretary. Again pre-internet, so everything on paper (with cheques). I remember the entries arriving in the post and a few hand delivered. From many places - Hereford, Bristol, Stourport, Warwick, London. And from public schools - Radley, Latymer, Abingdon, Shiplake. I look at the entry list now and virtually all the clubs still enter each year.
We did offer pairs events as well - and did so for a few more years after 1995. Although, after a while we decided to drop them as they get in the way when putting in gaps between events. Normally the fastest pair is faster than the slowest girl's fours - so we end up having pairs overtake fours.
In total we got 99 entries - a very good start. It would cost around £350 to host the event (excluding the cost of pots which we could reuse). The Wallingford entries alone would cover that cost. All was looking good.
The day of the race came. The first division for the Sculling Head was midday - but it get's dark earlier in December. So the first division was at 11am. Meaning a very early start to get everyone in place - the rafts were moved at 7am along with people out on the river putting out buoys and signs. Registration started at 7am as well - and I can tell you it is bl***y cold in December.
At that time in the morning we had a problem. You couldn't see to the other side of the river. We had freezing fog. Usually it will burn off - first crews will be boating around 10am, so we could have a few hours. I wasn't worrying about this. Everything was in place - rafts, buoys, catering, safety cover. Crews had arrived - we had got the trailers into the car park without a problem (although I do remember an incident a few years later when I think Upper Thames took a piece off the end of a boat around a tree when leaving!).
But we had this freezing fog. At 9am it wasn't looking good - if anything it was looking heavier. As people arrived they kept telling me that it was clear in Henley - so I shouldn't worry. At least everyone could see what the problem was. I have rowed in freezing fog and it's not normally a big problem. You can see sufficiently in front of yourself to manage. But in a race other crews are going to be so much closer. And this fog was heavy. I wouldn't have rowed in this even if not racing.
Boating at 10am was delayed. At the time we were quite inexperienced about putting in place a contingency plan. The second division wasn't due until 1.30pm, with boating starting at 12.30. But their wasn't a lot of time afterwards to delay this division. However, there was a bit of time between divisions. Quickly thinking about the problem meant that the latest that the last crew could finish would be around 12.15 - 20 minutes of racing meaning latest boating time of 11am. Not much margin - another hour we could probably allow. So we got the message out.
11am came - and went. Next change was to allow crews to decided what they wanted to race in a single division with boating starting at 1pm. We would just about finish before it gets dark. At the time their had been complaints amongst crews who had raced in Bristol a few weeks before finishing on the dark - we didn't want to start getting a reputation for such things.
1pm came - and there was no choice but to cancel.
I had entered a few head races - and I was annoyed when one was cancelled the event wouldn't refund entry fees. I had decided up front that we would guarantee the entry fees if we cancelled the event. And we have done this ever since - including for the regatta (which has a lot more costs). It doesn't cost a lot for a club to host an event like this. It does if we take into account £2500 for prizes - but unless you are really silly and have the year engraved on them, you will get to re-use them for the next event. (Incidentally, we had our prizes engraved with WALLINGFORD HEAD. Winners of recent Wallingford events might notice that the pots say WALLINGFORD ROWING CLUB. Otherwise we could end up with several thousand pounds of prizes stored).
I think everyone who had entered took the cancellation on the chin. It was so disappointing though. I had put in such a large amount of work but their was nothing we could do. All the volunteers had got behind the event - the club was I think was behind it. The volunteers got the rafts back to the club and collected the buoys. We had I think sold a large amount of tea and cake - although not enough to cover the costs.
If I look at the briefing sheet for the volunteers I see that the team leaders are mostly the same people that are my best friends now. And some are still involved in the events.
After all the clear up was done - and I took a whole load of stuff home, it was time for the pub. I have to say that those close friends all gave me a cheer, which was very much appreciated. And - there was still freezing fog the next morning. And a bit of a hangover.
The race in 1995 was a bit of a practice for getting everything in place and knowing what to do. A good learning experience. The event in 1996 attracted 97 entries - mainly the same clubs who had came the year before. I was supposed to race in 1995 (although I can't see where I would have had time) - but in 1996 I was awaiting a hernia operation, so I have never got to race in this event. Entries since 1996 have increased - in 1997 we received 171 entries - and last years event had a self imposed limit of 260. The race in 1997 became a lot more serious with the large number of competitors (we estimate over 1000 in that year). Safety became a much more important concern. Although their were no incidents, we were reliant on club members driving launches or being on the bank. We did have one on-river rescue service. But we would need to take it much more seriously.
For note: of the 18 years since the first event in 1995, there have been six cancellations (1995, 2000, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2012) and the 2002 race had a reduced entry due to the stream.
