Oxford Brookes University Boat Club
Image showing the rowing club's emblem
Image showing the rowing club's blade colours
LocationWallingford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Home waterRiver Thames
Founded1978 (1978) [1]
Key people
  • Henry Bailhache-Webb (Men)
  • Hugo Gulliver (Women)
  • Chris Tebb (Assistant)
  • Richard Spratley (Director)
UniversityOxford Brookes University
AffiliationsBritish Rowing
boat code - OBU
BUCS
Websitebrookesrowing.org.uk
Notable members
Scott Durant, Olivia Carnegie-Brown, Peter Chambers, Richard Chambers, Alex Partridge, Caroline O'Connor, Steve Williams, Alastair Heathcote, Tom Lucy, Rowley Douglas, Fred Scarlett, Ben Hunt-Davis
Oxford Brookes University Boat Club
Medal record
Rowing
World U23 Championships
Representing  Great Britain
Gold medal – first place 2019 Florida, USAM8+ Henry Blois-Brooke
Gold medal – first place 2019 Florida, USAM8+ Matthew Rowe
Silver medal – second place 2019 Florida, USAM4+ Scott Cockle
Silver medal – second place 2019 Florida, USAW8+ Johanna Gannon
Silver medal – second place 2018 PolandM4- Samuel Nunn
Silver medal – second place 2018 PolandM8+ Matthew Aldridge
Silver medal – second place 2017 BulgariaM4+ Charlie Clarke
Bronze medal – third place 2017 BulgariaM8+ Matthew Aldridge
Bronze medal – third place 2017 BulgariaM8+ Morgan Bolding
Bronze medal – third place 2017 BulgariaM8+ Michael Glover
Bronze medal – third place 2016 RotterdamLM4- Ben Reeves
Silver medal – second place 2015 BulgariaLM4x Jamie Copus
Silver medal – second place 2015 BulgariaLM4x Joel Cassells
Bronze medal – third place 2015 BulgariaLM4- Ben Reeves
Bronze medal – third place 2015 BulgariaW8+ Annie Withers
Silver medal – second place 2014 ItalyLM4- Jamie Copus
Silver medal – second place 2014 ItalyLM4- Joel Cassells
Silver medal – second place 2013 AustriaLM4- Joel Cassells
Gold medal – first place 2012 LithuaniaM2- Matthew Tarrant
Silver medal – second place 2012 LithuaniaW2- Olivia Carnegie-Brown
Gold medal – first place 2011 AmsterdamLM2- Peter Chambers
Bronze medal – third place 2011 AmsterdamM8+ Matthew Tarrant
Bronze medal – third place 2011 AmsterdamM8+ Oliver Staite
Olympic Games
Representing  Great Britain
Gold medal – first place 2016 RioM8+ Scott Durant
Silver medal – second place 2016 RioW8+ Olivia Carnegie-Brown
Silver medal – second place 2012 LondonLM4- Peter Chambers
Silver medal – second place 2012 LondonLM4- Richard Chambers
Bronze medal – third place 2012 LondonM8+ Alex Partridge
Gold medal – first place 2008 BeijingM4- Steve Williams
Silver medal – second place 2008 BeijingM8+ Alex Partridge
Silver medal – second place 2008 BeijingM8+ Alastair Heathcote
Silver medal – second place 2008 BeijingM8+ Tom Lucy
Gold medal – first place 2004 AthensM4- Steve Williams
Gold medal – first place 2000 SydneyM8+ Rowley Douglas
Gold medal – first place 2000 SydneyM8+ Fred Scarlett
Gold medal – first place 2000 SydneyM8+ Ben Hunt-Davis

Oxford Brookes University Boat Club (known as Brookes especially verbally and as OBUBC in formal print) is the rowing club of Oxford Brookes University, England. Its large base is on the longest reach of the non-tidal parts of the Thames,[2] at Wallingford, in Oxfordshire – about 6 miles (10 km) of easily rowable, little-congested river. The club has been very successful at pre-training and co-training many Olympic competitors including those for Great Britain who won 6 golds at Olympics spread across three consecutive games, starting with the games of 2000.[3]

From 1995 into 2007, inclusive, Brookes won its record 13 consecutive British Universities Sport Association (annual BUSA games) men's eight wins.[4]

History

The club was founded in 1978 as the Oxford Polytechnic Boat Club (OPBC) where it was given its first home with Oxford Falcon Rowing and Canoeing Club and begun to enter competitions as a composite Polytechnic/Falcon crew.[5] In the 2020 work The Umpires' Handbook the blade colours of the club are: burgundy, navy & cream, as is the kit.[6] Due to the rarity of two of these colours the cream is in some kit and/or blades left as white and the burgundy (13% blue, 50% red) made up as maroon.

Path to a 1993 Henley Royal Regatta cup

In 1981, OPBC made its first qualification to Henley Royal Regatta (HRR). The crew was knocked out in the first round of The Ladies Challenge Plate [5] In 1990, the Henley Regatta Stewards offered a new event for students of single colleges and schools, the Henley Prize. OPBC had a talented crew who had taken the bronze medal in the Senior A eights at Ghent, and lost the final of the Marlow Regatta Open 8's to Imperial by a few feet after OPBC were impeded by Walton RC rowing in a front-loader 8. At Henley, OPBC met Imperial in the Semi-final. Imperial lead by nearly a length at the Barrier but OPBC began to pull back through. At Fawley OPBC pushed, closing the gap to a canvas when one of the crew caught a crab. Imperial jumped to a 2 1/2 length lead with the OPBC crew giving chase. Down the enclosures the lead was reduced to 1/2 length but IC held on to win. The 2 man of the IC boat Pete Riley was utterly exhausted in the race and had to be removed from the boat by the emergency launch. IC raced the final with a substitute as Riley was judged un-fit to row. IC won the final comfortably with the Stewards awarding Riley an extra medal as he "had rowed in the real final." In 1991 with 6 of the 1990 boat returning OPBC fell at the quarter-final stage to Nipon University. In 1992, the Henley Prize had been renamed the Temple Challenge Cup and OPBC returned with a new crew. Disaster hit OPBC A in the second round when the stroke's seat jammed on the first stroke. The crew battled down the course with 7 men but were eliminated. By 1993 Oxford Polytechnic had become Oxford Brookes University, but the boat club still raced in "Poly Blue." In the final, Brookes met Trinity College Dublin, winning a glorious race by 3 1/4 lengths.

2000 to 2008 Olympians

2000 marked the first Olympic success of a chunk of the men's squad: Ben Hunt-Davis, Fred Scarlett and Rowley Douglas won gold medals in the Men's Eights at Sydney. Steve Williams achieved gold at the World Championships, along with Alex Partridge who won U23 gold.

Williams went on to win gold at the Athens Olympics and did so four years later. He won a World Championship event in 2005 with Partidge.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics Alastair Heathcote, Tom Lucy and Partridge won silver. Carla Ashford and Caroline O'Connor powered into fifth in the final of the women's eight.

2009 to date, highlights

In 2009, Brookes beat Yale to the Prince Albert Challenge Cup at HRR.

London 2012 saw further success with the Chambers brothers of Peter and Richard gaining two silver medals in the LM4-. Partridge gained a bronze in the M8+.

In 2014, Brookes brought HRR's Temple back to Britain for the first time since 2006, winning against the freshmen crew from Brown. They repeated this two years later – atoning their narrow quarter-final loss in 2015 (deemed 'the Temple final on the Friday') to eventual winners A.S.R. Nereus (of the Netherlands) – by beating the 2V crew from Harvard.

In 2017, Brookes went one step further again – after setting a new course record in Ghent, as well as a domestic national record of 5:30 at Eton Dorney. They won the Temple with an entirely new crew. Thus they won for the third year in four, and snatched the Ladies' Challenge Plate (for men) with the 2016 crew. This particular double at HRR was a first for any university boat club.

In 2021, the club won the blue riband event at the HRR, the Grand Challenge Cup. They won five other events: the Ladies', Stewards', Silver Goblets, the Island and the Visitors'.[7]

Boat House

The Oxford Brookes New Boat House sits on a 10 km stretch of the River Thames that is classed as one of the best non-tidal stretches of water in the country. This length, width and quality of the water has been a key factor in Brookes' success, allowing both men's and women's crews to train together, in an enjoyable but highly competitive environment.

In June 2013 marked the opening of the new boat house on the thames designed by architects Spratley Studios. The vision was to expand and update an outgrown, outdated building to produce a state-of-the-art facility, fit to support the demands of World and Olympic medallists and create an environment in which top-class athletes can shine. The contemporary interpretation of local agricultural buildings, compliant with stringent environmental and ecological benchmarks, underpins the concept. The simplistic gable form echoes a resplendent Tithe Barn on the banks of the Thames, a discreet silhouette within the landscape.[8]

The new facilities include land-based training areas, extra boat storage and large changing rooms.[9]

Taurus Boat Club

Taurus Boat Club is the Alumni club of Oxford Brookes University. The Taurus Boat Club is for past oarsmen and oarswomen that were former alumni of Oxford Polytechnic & Oxford Brookes University with the allowance of current Brookes welcomed to join. Taurus won the Britannia Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta in 2013.[10]

Honours

British champions

Year Winning crew/s
1999Men 4-
2002Men 8+, Women 4+ [11][12]
2006Open 8+, Women 4- [13]
2007Women 8+ [14]
2011Open 2-[15]
2012Open 2- [16]
2015Open 8+ [17]
2018Open 8+ [18]

Key = 2, 4, 8 (crew size), x (sculls), - (coxless), + (coxed)

Henley Royal Regatta

Year Races won (shortened, thus unofficial name, prefixed 'the')
1993Temple
1995Temple
1996Britannia
1997Ladies'
1998Britannia
1999Silver Goblets & Nickalls'; Visitors'
2000Visitors'; Prince Philip
2001Visitors' (with Taurus); Prince Philip
2002Remenham; Prince Philip
2004Visitors'
2006Visitors'; Temple
2009Prince of Wales
2012Visitors'
2013Stewards'; Britannia (note: Taurus BC only); Remenham
2014Temple
2016Temple
2017Ladies' (with Taurus); Temple
2018Ladies'
2019Stewards'; Ladies'; Temple
2021Grand; Ladies'; Silver Goblets & Nickalls'; Stewards'; Island; Visitors'[7]
2022Grand (with Leander); Temple; Prince Albert[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Oxford Brookes University. Accessed 2015-08-14
  2. ↑ "Environment Agency Distances between locks on the River Thames". web page. Environmental Agency. 19 November 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012. Distances given in km
  3. ↑ "Oxford Brookes University opens elite rowing facilities". BBC News. 4 June 2013. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Brookes Boat Club - a timeline". Oxford Brookes at the Olympics 2012. Oxford Brookes University. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  5. 1 2 "The Brookes Boat Club - a timeline - Oxford Brookes University". www.brookes.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
  6. ↑ The Umpires' Handbook British Rowing, 2020: at p.49.
  7. 1 2 "Results 2021". Henley Royal Regatta. Retrieved 21 October 2021.
  8. ↑ "Boat House". Spratley Studios. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  9. ↑ Oxford Brookes University Boat Club. Accessed 2015-05-21
  10. ↑ Taurus Boat Club. Accessed 2015-04-23
  11. ↑ Rosewell, Mike (22 July 2002). "Rosewell, Mike. "Oxford Brookes put finishing touches to engaging regatta." Times, 22 July 2002, p. 23". The Times. p. 23.
  12. ↑ ""The results service." Times, 22 July 2002, p. 26". The Times. 22 July 2002. p. 26.
  13. ↑ ""Rowing." Times, 17 July 2006, p. 57". The Times. 17 July 2006. p. 57.
  14. ↑ "2007 archive of results". Web Archive. Archived from the original on 6 December 2016.
  15. ↑ "Full archive of results". Web Archive. Archived from the original on 13 March 2017.
  16. ↑ "British Rowing Champions 2012 declared". British Rowing. 16 July 2012.
  17. ↑ "2015 British Rowing Senior Championships" (PDF). British Rowing.
  18. ↑ "2018 British Rowing Senior Championships results" (PDF). British Rowing.
  19. ↑ "Results".
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