One of a few clubs located on the Putney stretch of the Tideway, King’s College School Boat Club is an example of one of the many clubs held in reverence in the schoolboy rowing circuit.
Starting in 1864, KCSBC is not as steeped in history as Westminster or St Pauls, both of who row on the same stretch of water, but nonetheless, KCSBC consistently puts out good crews, and turns out good results at the upper echelons of schoolboy rowing. The origin of rowing at King’s is complicated to trace since, in the late Victorian era, organised sport was a novel concept, but the first mention of ‘boat club’ was the purchase of such premises in 1864. However, rowing at KSCBC was curtailed due to funding drying up, despite Leopold de Rothschild being a patron for a while. However, rowing made its resurgence at King’s in 1993 when the Barclays Boat Club’s purchasing led the way to the revitalisation of KCSBC and what remains a bastion of sweat toil and effort. This building shared with Godolphin and Latymer, and on boat racing occasions, CUBC is still the beating heart that King’s operates out of today.
KCSBC, being a schoolboy boat club, has a heavy if not exclusive junior focus. Their squad ranges from J14s all the way up to J18s. With its diverse portfolio of rowers, the club has seen successes on both the national and international stages, sending many rowers to the prestigious Coupe de Le Jeunesse and many more to international championships. On the home stages, the club consistently competes in most of the tideway local races and those that make up the British triple (Henley, National Schools’ Regatta, and School’s Head of the River Race). The club’s Henley campaigns are not without commendation, typically making it to the Thursday of the competition, most recently in the last Henley regatta held in 2019, later being knocked out by St Edwards. In addition to this, King’s has also been very successful elsewhere. From 1989-2006 King’s had won 17 Gold, 6 Silver and 9 Bronze Medals at National Schools’ and many more after that, their most recent being in the 2019 regatta’s J15 Championship eights category when they won silver.
King’s races in a wide variety of boats but enters each part of the triple in eights. At Henley, King’s competes in the Princess Elizabeth Challenge cup, at National Schools’ King’s enters eights from J15-18 in either the first eights or the champ eights category, and at Schools head it is the same, racing eights from their J15-J18 squads, their most recent success being a win from their J15 eight in 2019. But these are not the only home races that King’s competes in. King’s regularly competes in other events such as Quintin head, where the J15 eight has taken the victory two years in a row, in HORR, where the coxless four took the win in 2020. On the more international stage, KCSBC consistently sends rowers through the GB trials system to the Coupe de la Jeunesse and to the Junior World Championships and regularly comes back with metalware, taking home a swathe of medals in 2019 in both the eight and the four. This year, despite COVD-19 ruining most of the season, GB ergo trials have still been able to go ahead, and King’s seems to be putting the lockdowns to fair use, having several rowers within the top 70. In addition to this King’s regularly competes in the Boston held Head of the Charles Regatta, which was unfortunately cancelled in 2020 due to COVID 19.
King’s is not afraid to put themselves out there and break records, an example of this being Ollie Holmes in 2020 breaking the 2km RP3 Junior world record twice. Holmes also has other records to his name, for instance, his breaking of the 4-minute British record for his age category. In terms of equipment, KCSBC’s armoury is well equipped with a range of boats, most notably their brand-new carbon rigged Empacher, which they acquired in early 2020. Included in their arsenal is a range of Hudsons, Empachers and Fillipis, which I’m sure are begging to be used after the reign of COVID has loosened its grip. In addition to this King’s rowing has at its helm Patrick Duggan, a skilled and renowned coach in junior rowing circles with many years of experience under his belt, including having been heavily involved in the GB junior system, most recently coaching the Junior Men’s Eight in 2019. In addition to this King’s has a new fully kitted out weights room, gym and ergo room put to fair use pre-COVID.
As ever, the frequent national lockdowns and isolation periods mean that there are significant gains to be won or lost in these trying times, so we will have to wait until we race again to see how much speed has been squeezed out of these troubling times.
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