Mass participation on the Tideway
While the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race grabs all the attention there are four other, much bigger, races for eights on the waters of the Tideway each March. Separate races for men, women, juniors and veterans attract hundreds of entries and give thousands of rowers the chance to compete on the 4¼ miles of the tidal Thames that separate Mortlake and Putney.
The Women’s Head of the River Race is normally the first in the sequence, usually three weeks before the Boat Race. The men take to the water for their Head of the River Race on the Saturday before Oxford and Cambridge meet. The Veterans follow the men on the Sunday – which has typically been the first day of British Summer Time. Juniors enjoy a day out of the class room to race the Schools Head during the week before the men and veterans.
In 2018, an unusual planetary alignment brought three of the four events into the same long weekend. The women led the way on Saturday 10 March, the men on Sunday 11 with the juniors following on Monday 12. (The 2018 Veterans Head again marks the start of summer time, but this year it takes place on the day after the Boat Race.) Hear the Boat Sing reported on how these three events – which together with the National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships on Friday 9 and the Scullery, a junior event for scullers held at Dorney Lake, on Tuesday 13 March – attracted an aggregate 13,000 competitors over five consecutive days.
Rowing’s long and proud tradition of promoting mass sporting participation was brought home to me when I first raced in the Head of the River Race on 28 March 1981.
By 1981 the entry has been capped at 420 crews for several years – for reasons of health, safety, logistics and the finite duration of the ebbing tide. None the less, in my first head, 3780 individuals from as far afield as Aberdeen, Belfast and Exeter in the UK had the opportunity to clash blades with each other and with crews from Ireland, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Competitors ranged from Olympians to novices.
For a second year student representing a provincial university with little in the way of rowing heritage or reputation, racing on the Tideway in London for the first time was a great experience. It felt like a massive event. And while not winning, we had a good row and turned in a pretty respectable result.
In the week leading up to the Head, the sporting press had been getting very excited about a mass participation sporting event. The first London Marathon was to take place on Sunday 29 March. 6255 runners would complete that first marathon. Sadly, in their marathon previews, none of the press noticed that, within the unique constraints of its Tideway field-of-play, rowing had already been trial-blazing mass participation for several years.
This time-lapse video gives a flavour of the ebb-and-flow of the 2018 Head of the River Race.
Thanks to London Rowing Club for their assistance in creating this video.
