"A History of Rowing" by Hylton Cleaver was published in 1957. He had a great deal to say about Henley!
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A senior Steward of the Royal Regatta, who, during Henley week, is not far short of being a Garter King at Arms, once pointed out to the Mayor of Henley, in an after dinner speech, that, were it not for rowing, no one would have heard of his silly old town. The Mayor did not make the apt retort that without Henley there would have been no Royal Regatta. But he might well have done.
There is no other stretch of water anywhere in the country offering anything like the facilities a Royal Regatta deserves. Even at Henley, crews have to race against the stream, which is neither the ideal method nor the custom elsewhere; the reason being that, if they did not, they could get a straight mile and a quarter only by starting races close to Henley Bridge, and ending at Temple Island where few would be able to see the finish; in addition to which there would be no grandstands, enclosures, lawns, flower-beds, bands, and cocktail bars just where they are most wanted.
But it is not only this question of rowing upstream that strikes visitors to Henley as odd. One of the charms of the Royal Regatta is that it does everything contrary to international routine; by doing which, and getting away with it, Henley has achieved a prestige which is now inviolate.
‘Take notice that it is run not by professional showmen but by amateurs, all of whom wear, throughout the week, white trousers a shade too small, blazers of faded hue, and shrunken caps.
It took the Russians two full years to appreciate that these commissars of the Royal Regatta have more authority than Parliament. Now they accept the fact respectfully.
When the Olympic Regatta was due to be held here in 1948, it was suggested that Henley would not be suitable, and that we should try Loch Lomond or Lake Windermere, where at least the nations could row five crews abreast. What would have been the good of that, if the crowd were too far off to see anything, by comparison with Henley, where a pretty girl lying in a punt alongside the booms can toss a scented kerchief into her boy friend’s lap as he goes past on the way to the start?
The British made one compromise for the 1948 Olympic Games. They took away their booms so that crews could row three abreast, and at the same time they took away their bandstand, gardens, bars, in fact all the atmosphere of Henley, so that those who remembered it in July felt most depressed in August, and never more so than when the anthems of victorious countries were played on a gramophone.
The Russians were not there then. They first appeared in 1954 and created such fantastic, if faked, public interest that receipts were boosted and produced a bounty, True to form, the Russians began by complaining. They found fault with their hotel, the method of making the draw, the ways of drawing up the timetable; they wanted rubber booms instead of wooden ones, and a wider course, When they won the Grand Challenge Cup they wanted to form up two-deep at the prize-giving and march to the dais behind an enormous red banner bearing the hammer and sickle, whilst the band played their national anthem. With the utmost courtesy the old gentlemen in their well braced trousers and funny little caps made one unfailing answer “Not at Henley, please!
When the Russian trainer appealed to the President of the International Federation, who happened to be there, to override these reactionary restrictions, he was advised by the President, who was a Swiss, that Henley had been the perfect example of how to run a rowing garden-party for more than a hundred years, and nobody was going to alter it now.
The Russians took home three trophies, and maybe some wondered if we should ever see them again, but they came back sharp to time a, year later including Henley’s new book of honour in which theirs was the first entry.
In 1955 the Russians decided to walk out because the dock strike denied them their boats, but, once these were released, the Stewards broke with tradition and re-admitted them to the lists.
The Russians, in noting on their first visit how strange are the Henley rites, observed that the umpire’s launch which follows each race is loaded with ladies, schoolmasters, and even children, all wishing to watch from a magnificent vantage point some match in which they are intimately concerned. At no regatta outside this country is that permitted. Under international regulations, nobody may be on the umpire’s launch but the driver—and a spare umpire even follows on a second launch, in case there be a breakdown in the first one.
The Henley Royal Regatta course does not conform in distance with European and Olympic requirements, and the Stewards refuse to alter it. There is no "repéchage" at the Royal Regatta, therefore no second chance for the best losers; no electric timing; victory is not decided by decimal points in seconds, but is guessed at in distance by one of the old gentlemen in caps. And the time for the course is taken by watch by another of his cronies.
No one may enter, leave, or remain in the Stewards’ Enclosure unless his badge for the day is conspicuously worn and can be seen by the scouts and members of the proctor’s staff at Oxford University who are engaged at Henley each year as top security men; for which reason they raise their straw hats even as they turn you out. At the bars no cash may be taken, And nobody may eat a picnic lunch on the lawn. One trouble about this is that members spend their vouchers in July and get the bill when they have forgotten Henley and are thinking of winter sports. This the foreigners cannot understand at all.
Why, then, do they keep coming? They are not invited. All thé Stewards ever do is gravely to consider their applications to enter and give a considered reply; no contribution is made towards the expenses of even the most attractive crews, and no hospitality is offered.
They come because everything about this regatta is so different... as night life in Paris seems different to the Englishman. Rowing standards at the Royal Regatta are today below world level. Socially they were never higher. Henley ends the London season. And when the complaint is ventured that it clashes with Wimbledon’s Lawn Tennis, and that one or the other should give way, the Stewards have the stock reply, and how right they are: "Change something? Not at Henley, please!”
1950: The Grand was won by Harvard University, U.S. in 7:23
1950: The Diamonds was won by A.D. Rowe (Leander Club in 9:11
1951: The Grand was won by Lady Margaret B.C. in 7:16
1951: The Diamonds was won by T.A. Fox (Pembroke College, Cambridge) in 8:59
1952: The Grand was won by Leander Club in 6:38
1952: The Diamonds was won by M.T. Wood (Sydney R.C., Austl.) in 8:12
1953: The Grand was won by Leander Club in 6:49
1953: The Diamonds was won by T.A. Fox (London R.C.) in 8:12
Spectators on boats -
Spectators on punts and skiffs, 1953
1954: The Grand was won by Club Krylya Sovetov, U.S.S.R. in 7:16
1954: The Diamonds was won by P. Vlasic (Mornar Club, Yugos.) in 8:42
1955: The Grand was won by University of Pennsylvania, U.S. in 6:56
1955: The Diamonds was won by T. Kocerka (A.Z.S. Bydgoszcz, Pol.) in 8:33
1956: The Grand was won by Centre Sportif des Forces de lArme Franaise, Fr. in 7:06
1956: The Diamonds was won by T. Kocerka (A.Z.S. Bydgoszcz, Pol.) in 8:37
1957: The Grand was won by Cornell University, U.S. in 6:53
1957: The Diamonds was won by S.A. Mackenzie (Sydney R.C., Austl.) in 8:25
BIG RED TAKES IT ALL
First the Russians, then Yale, fell before mighty Cornell's drive to victory at the Henley Regatta
John Lovesey
As cornell's crew moved its shell Spirit of '57 away from the landing stage on the last day of the Henley Royal Regatta, they passed Princeton's 150-pound eight on the water. Princeton had just won the Thames Challenge Cup, and one exuberant Tiger oarsman yelled across the Thames: "Go get them, Cornell!" Cornell's cox, Carl Schwarz, barked a crisp order, and his well-drilled, massive crew leaned into the oars and pulled to the start for their race against Yale, in the first all-American final of the Grand Challenge Cup. A becapped and blazered Henley veteran watching them go murmured: "Today they prove whether or not they really are the finest crew in the world."
The race between Yale and Cornell was to be the final bout of an intense-almost bitter-two-year rivalry. They were probably the finest crews in American rowing history. In 1956 Yale beat Cornell for the honor of representing the United States at the Melbourne Olympics. The Big Red had never got over that. This year, before coming to Henley, Cornell had beaten Yale twice, once by a length and once by a foot. Yale had never finished stomaching the two defeats.
The last time each university had sent eights to Henley was in the 1890s, Cornell in 1895 and Yale in 1896. In both cases the American crews lost.
As fate would have it, and Yale certainly would not admit otherwise, both crews turned up at Henley for the 1957 Royal Regatta. By a further coincidence, the draw for the Grand Challenge Cup, Henley's premier award for eights, put Yale and Cornell in opposite halves of the competition, meaning they could meet in the final. Of the four other crews in the contest only a Russian eight, Club Krasnoe Znamia, stood in the way of an ail-American ending, and a terrific climax to a rowing rivalry.
Yale arrived on the river a week before Cornell, and Yale's coach, Jim Rathschmidt, expressed confidence. His present crew, Rathschmidt said, minus four of the Melbourne eight, had not so far shown the speed of his Olympic combination. But Rathschmidt felt that they "might be capable of some really fast times now."
Both Rathschmidt and Cornell's quiet coach, Harrison (Stork) Sanford, had to adopt the Henley practice of coaching from the towpath. Astride a borrowed bike, coping with a megaphone and a stop watch, tall and lanky Sanford made a hilarious figure.
Sanford was worried. Although he considered it a sign of champions, his trouble with Cornell, he said, was inconsistency. "My big problem," he explained, "is bringing them to their peak at the right time on the right day."
Cornell soon proved their coach could do it. The Grand Challenge draw gave a bye to Cornell into the semifinals, where they met the Russian eight.
Club Krasnoe Znamia had been picked for Henley in national trials, so the race was virtually an America versus Russia match. On Friday throngs of spectators lined the banks and floated in punts. Even the elegant throng in the exclusive stewards' enclosure was impatiently excited.
As Cornell expected, their red-vested opponents put in a terrific burst at the start, and led for most of the race. At one point Club Krasnoe Znamia's tough, well-muscled and bronzed crew was just about three-quarters of a length ahead, but Cornell never let it get out of striking distance. When the Americans finally pulled out all the stops on the last section of the one-mile 550-yard course, the Russians had no answer to Cornell's amazing power. Cornell crossed the line a length ahead and clocked the astounding time of six minutes 30 seconds, eight seconds better than the previous best time in the Grand Challenge Cup. Since 1839 only three other races have been rowed in less than six minutes 50 seconds.
Soon after, Yale won its semifinal and set the scene for the climactic day.
On Saturday morning Jim Rathschmidt paced nervously, chain-smoking cigarets. He said he had planned for Yale to beat Cornell "in the body of the race." He added: "We're in great shape and ready to go."
Cornell's cox, Carl Schwarz, reckoned his crew's chances were better than ever and explained: "If we row like we did yesterday, we can beat Yale. Our only worry is what our race against the Russians did to us."
It started at midafternoon in scorching heat. The course was slow. In place of the tail wind, which had helped Cornell set their record the day before, there was a head wind.
Cornell started high, stroking 45. Yale pulled at 42. But at the quarter-mile neither crew had gained an advantage. Shortly after, however, Cornell drew ahead by a deck. Schwarz let Yale know about it. At the mile Cornell drew ahead a little more, increasing its lead to a quarter of a length. Yale stepped up its stroke, but to no avail. Near the end, Schwarz called for Cornell's full power in the last 30 strokes. Explained Cornell's Stroke Phil Gravink afterwards: "It's like doing a sprint." The burst sent the glistening cedar shell past the finish line half a length ahead of Yale. The time was six minutes 53 seconds.
Afterward, in the boathouse, Yale's oarsmen could hardly speak. Looking over at the happy Cornell men, Yale's sweat-stained captain, Don Beer, could only say: "That's a great crew there."
Jim Rathschmidt sadly explained, "We rowed as well as we could, but it wasn't good enough."
Stork Sanford cheerfully allowed himself to smile about his crew's great triumphs on two successive days. "Strange thing is," mused Sanford, "they seemed fresher after today's race than yesterday. We have a great deal of respect for Yale, but we reckoned if we could hold them over the first mile, they couldn't beat us on the finish. Our race worked out as planned."
The Big Red had won all the honors rowing had to give. But the final honor-the one the crew wanted most-came not from Henley, but from Sanford, a quiet man not given to superlatives. "This Cornell crew," he said deliberately, "is the greatest crew I've ever had."
[ SEE 1963 THEN !]
1958: The Grand was won by Trud Club, U.S.S.R. in 6:40
1958: The Diamonds was won by S.A. Mackenzie (Sydney R.C., Austl.) in 8:06
1959: The Grand was won by Harvard University, U.S. in 6:57
1959: The Diamonds was won by S.A. Mackenzie (Sydney R.C., Austl.) in 8:29