ROWING RANT

I am very raw. I feel the stupidity of one who has committed himself far to enthusiastically to a cause and, in so doing, involved other people as well, only to find fulfilment ripped away literally at the final second by a twist of fate (and, candidly, the stupidity of a cox).

I won't do this again, I won't be supporting my old college at Oxford's Summer Eights regatta or anywhere else. I will not to sucked in to the ambitions (and emotions) of others who I barely know and with whom I have nothing in common barring an occasional tendency to wear Pembroke College pink. (And the way I am feeling, I won't be doing much of that again either).

I wanted the Pembroke Woman's First Eight not only to win but to go Head of the River. They are the only college women's crew since about 1976 whose names I have known and whom (in some cases) I have met and spoken to on more than one occasion.

And they should have done. With two World silver medallists (also winning blues) plus others of a calibre much better than anything in any other college, what we had here was arguably the fastest Women's Eight ever put out by an Oxford college.

And what happened? On Thursday they got away with rowing into the bank. At the time, because it came out OK, everyone thought this was a lucky thing - a piece of serendipity but no, we should have foreseen that one piece of bad steering or bad control can lead to another; can lead in fact to missing a bump that was sitting, in the middle of the river, waiting to be taken.

And then making such a cock-up of the post bump phase (a phase where the bumpee had refused to acknowledge that anything had happened bump-wise): Stopping, starting. God there was a chance they could have ended at the bottom of the Divison not the top.

I am writing this before I know the outcome of appeals. But Head Crews are not removed on appeal and even if Bailliol do go down to Pembroke, who cares now? It's the riverbank where these things count not a desk somewhere in OUBC.

I feel sorry irrelevantly for me but I feel dreadfully sorry for Natalie Redgrave, a woman for whom I have huge respect and, today, an equal amount of sympathy.

Well rowed Bailliol.