ROWING:IN A surprise move, financial considerations have forced Metropolitan Regatta to cut their two-day regatta next weekend at Blessington to a single day. One of the highlights of the domestic year was in doubt because a disappointing number of entries, allied to sizeable costs, presented the prospect of the event losing a lot of money for a second year.
Last year poor weather on both days forced the abandonment of Metro and left the organising committee with a big debt.
On Wednesday night, this year’s committee concluded the only way forward was to cut the event, the fourth Grand League event of the season, to a single day, tomorrow week.
“It’s just pure economics,” said John O’Keeffe of the regatta committee. “There is no redress – if you don’t have the money to pay your bills then the regatta is over. That’s the end of it; it would go. So rather than let it go we said we’d go for a one-day event.”
O’Keeffe suggested the low entry may be down to three factors: juniors, who are the vast bulk of many regattas, will be exam-tied; the abandoned event last year cast a long shadow, and senior crews are heading for regattas in Reading next weekend and then on to Marlow as they build up to Henley Royal Regatta.
Two of the three Grand League regattas so far, Skibbereen and Cork, were staged at the National Rowing Centre in Farran Wood, which gives the host club the big advantage of a top-class, ready-made venue at a set fee. In Blessington, the infrastructure has to be built almost from scratch. The five constituent clubs of the committee are Commercial, Garda, Neptune, Trinity and UCD.
Ironically, Carlow’s regatta on Sunday has been so oversubscribed with entries the organisers may opt to expand it to a two-day event next year. The regatta is primarily a junior event, but in terms of numbers and range it is one of the biggest occasions of the year – it draws crews from the length and breadth of the country, from Cork to Derry to Galway.
Some of the strongest Irish clubs have sent senior crews to Dorney Lake at Eton, which this weekend stages the (London) Metropolitan Regatta. NUIG’s senior women’s eight, Neptune women’s pair and Commercial men’s four look like serious contenders at the top end, and Cork Boat Club, UCD and UL would hope to impress.
The forecast good weather should also add to the occasion at the Queen’s-Trinity boat races in Belfast, this year sponsored by Ramada Hotel, Shaw’s Bridge.
It is understood Queen’s will pit their intermediate eight against Trinity’s intermediates in the senior men’s race.
The week brought two sets of awards: the Afloat rowers of the month for May were Siobhán McCrohan and Claire Lambe, the Ireland lightweight double scull which reached the A Final at the first World Cup regatta in Bled. In Cork on Tuesday, John Paul Collins and Grace Collins of Cork Boat Club were presented with the Cork Sculling Ladder awards.
There was also a good result for Commercial at the English National Schools’ Regatta in Nottingham. Carl Geoghegan and Colm Ó Riada won the junior 16 double sculls.
Portora’s win in the men’s senior eight at Trinity Regatta last weekend contained one affecting note: the boat was named after the deputy head master of Portora Royal School, Robert Northridge, who retires in the next few weeks.
Northridge was one of the main movers in creating the remarkable club that Portora has become: a powerhouse junior club drawing on both communities in Enniskillen. The impetus came after the Enniskillen bombing.
“After the bomb I thought I had better do something to keep us from each other’s throats,” Northridge explained. “I went to St Michael’s (a Catholic school) and asked if there was anyone who wanted to row.”
Northridge was thrilled with Saturday’s win, which had a fitting circularity as he has strong Dublin roots and was educated at Trinity.
But he has little time for labels.
“I am an Irishman,” he says simply.
