Swimming
Boat Club
I
For
the majority of the season it seemed as though we were destined to come second; in the London Schools at both Senior and Junior and in matches against Highgate, Wellington and Epsom. The talent is there, the enthusiasm is there and the determination is there, but sadly only very rarely is it present in the same person at the same time. I say rarely because it patently did come together once. That was at the Bishop's Stortford and Harrow Festival where the Under-15 team of Adrian Price, Chris Guelff, Srdjn Sasho and Tom Wilson were victorious in the 4 by 50 metres Medley Relay. Their time was a best ever for this event by St. Paul's and narrowly — less than 0.5 sec — failed to beat the school record which has stood for thirteen years. Also at this event the Under-14 team qualified for the finals of both the Medley and Sprint Relay Finals. So, at least we made quite a good sandwich of the season. A good win at Dulwich to start and a win at Stortford at the finish. Remarkably we lose but two swimmers this year: John Humphris, a late entrant to the team, and a very experienced Captain, Ed Bretherton. Ed has maintained our tradition of good breaststrokers and competent all-rounders and it will take at least two swimmers to replace him. The next few years look promising, Tony's hard work is slowly coming to fruition with strong seniors remaining to combine with the good Juniors and we should be able to enter the Millennium from a position of strength. To celebrate the end of a century of swimming and a quarter of a century of my involvement we shall again hold a barbecue at the end of next season. This will be at 5.00pm on May 29th, 1999 after the match against the Otters. All swimmers present, and especially past, are invited but do let me know, at school, if you are intending to come. I do not want to run out of bangers too early!
n my first season of writing this article for The Pauline I must register my thanks, and those of the many coaches and rowers who have passed through the Boat House doors in the past seven years, to Mr. Morland for the work he did as President during that time. I now know from first hand experience that it is a very demanding job and during his time, the Boat Club enjoyed an enormous amount of success. As I write this in late July, two members of our first VIII are preparing to race at the Coup de Jeunesse, and another is in the final stages of training for the Junior World Championships. But success has not only come to the top end of the club. All year groups have had their fair share. There is much potential in all of the younger age groups and we can look forward to 'fast' 1st VIIIs in the years to come. This year the parents of the boys have once again excelled in their support. Not only have they been their usual vocal selves at regattas, but also have supplied much needed fuel in-between races. We are very grateful to them for their kind and generous gift of two tents which will enable us to organise and focus our support more efficiently at regattas in the years to come. The success of the club relies heavily on the input of time and effort of its coaches. This year saw a couple of new faces. I am pleased to say Mr. Streat was not only replaced in the classroom by Mr. Motion but also on the water. We were very glad to see the return of Mr. Motion after a five year absence. Mr. Wells, a student from Canada, arrived after Christmas and has helped with just about every age group in the Club. Many thanks to all of the coaches for all their efforts this year. A.J. Mayfield
Results v. Dulwich W v. Epsom v. Bedford Modern L v. Tonbridge v. Highgate L Bath Cup 45 v. Wellington L Otter Medley 37
Senior Rowing Autumn Term Sculling The two well-seasoned athletes Bourne and Lovett were joined by the fresh faces of Raffin and Abraham for the sculling half in the Autumn term. The season began well. Unwrapping the plastic of our brand new Aylings pair and bolting on its new riggers, we discussed whether we should take it for a practice outing before we raced it the following day in the Pairs Head. We decided not to bother. On its maiden voyage the next morning, Bourne and Lovett won the Junior Double Sculls in the Pairs Head Raffin and Abraham came third. Selection of the quad for the Fours' Head posed few problems: the boys showed that they were able to compete with the best. Going off the start at Walton Head one combination was directly behind the Imperial College pair of R. Dennis and R. Lucas (1st VIII '93) and held onto them for the first 1500m, till the extra size, power and experience took the students away. Still, impressive results at Walton and Hampton Small Boats Heads in the pairs showed that we had the makings of a good eight. The term ended with a win for a composite quad in the Tideway Small Boats Head — Lovett and Bourne this time teaming up with boys from Latymer.
Team: G.A.N. Asseily, 0. Berger, E.McC. Bretherton* (Captain),
P. Collender*, J. Edghill*, T.F. Glover, N.P.J. Grafton-Green, C.C. Guelff, A.W.S-L. Horn*, J.F. Humphris*, 0. Idriss, D.S. Javitz, R.G. Knowles*, M.E. Lovell, A.R. Price*, S.R.L. Pringle, J.L. Sanderson, S. Sasho, N.J. Shepherd, M.A. Soliman, B.D. Tausig, N. Tovell, T.J.P. Wilson, G.W.M. Yang. * Colours RH.L. Watkins
Club Swimming
F
r the first time for many years we had competition this
time. All too frequently in recent years the result has been
a foregone conclusion with one club dominating. This year it was between H, the eventual winners, and G, and if F had been able to have beaten H in the final relay the first two places would have been reversed. The closest races took place at Under-14, sadly from a swimming team point of view largely by oarsmen, but maybe they will learn that to be in the water has its advantages. My thanks to Club Presidents and Captains for their efforts this year. Most Senior finals were full, a rare occurrence indeed. I can only hope that next year, and in the future this will become the norm as it always used to be.
1 st VIII Five of last year's successful Henley VIII remained at St. Paul's. But the cox had grown too tall for his seat, and Mercer chose not to row, which left only three, Bourne, Lovett and of course our vastly experienced 15st World's Athlete, Captain Baxter-Warman, worth every ounce. So with the two lower eighth boys, Raffin and Abraham, three Junior Colts, Vickers, Cole and Hackworth and Curtis, an Upper Eighth boy whose
Result H: 89; G: 84; F: 50; A: 36; C: 30; E: 29; B: 16; D: 10
R.H.L. Watkins
83