Cover photo credit: Al Craigie
Along the straightest part of the River Wear, a two-storey brick building stands, home to St. Cuthbert’s Society Boat Club (SCSBC), comprised of students of St. Cuthbert’s Society (Cuth’s) and one of the 16 college boat clubs that make up Durham University’s college rowing scene.
SCSBC was officially founded in 1893 — the third-oldest college boat club in Durham — but records suggest that students of Cuth’s were rowing together as early as 1880. With over 130 years of history, the club continues to thrive despite the harsh northern winters in an attempt to bring rowing to all who would like to have a go, and maybe win some glassware in the process. I could never do justice to the entirety of the club’s rich history (read 2011/12 captain Michael Foulkes’ book for that), but the following is an attempt to highlight some of what makes the club special.
As with many other Durham college boat clubs, the first feature to note is that the club is entirely run by students with a new executive committee elected each academic year. Sometimes these will be people who rowed as juniors or for other clubs/universities, but often they are people who learned to row as novices at SCSBC. At the moment, coaching is also carried out by the more experienced students of the club.
This wasn’t always the case, though. From 1966 to 2003, coaching was spearheaded primarily by Bernard Robertson and Stan Turner, who were members of the Society’s Senior Common Room. The 1980s were a strong decade for SCSBC, perhaps owing to Robertson’s and Turner’s steadfast dedication to the club. Jed Gargan and Michael Laing were brought on in the 1991/92 season to bolster a Henley campaign for the men’s first eight, with Laing eventually moving on to greener pastures as the current chairman of Durham Regatta.
A notable SCSBC oarsman from this period is Tom Bishop, who won local sculling titles in 1967 and through the 1970s before going on to represent Great Britain in quadruple sculls at the 1975 World Rowing Championships and the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Additionally, Rob Morgan was part of an exceedingly successful SCSBC novice crew in 1986 before eventually becoming a coach for Leander Club and Team GB in the early 2010s, including the lightweight coxless men’s four who took home silver at the 2012 Olympic Games at Eton Dorney. James Clarke and Paul Kelly, the lightweight men’s pair who represented Great Britain at the 2005 U23 World Championships, were members of Cuth’s (although it’s unclear whether they ever officially rowed under SCSBC).
The aforementioned Henley Royal campaign in 1992 was sadly 5 seconds short of a chance at the Temple Challenge Cup, but the club did make it to side-by-side racing in 2003, 2006, and once again in 2015 in a composite with St. Hild & St. Bede College Boat Club. On the women’s side, SCSBC has been a semi-regular attendee at Henley Women’s since 1988, most recently with a coxed four sent to time trials in 2022.
Even making the trip to Henley is a cause for celebration, as the club’s time and resources are vastly limited compared to larger and more well-funded clubs. Nowadays, the limited time spent down south is reserved for the largest London head races in the spring. SCSBC first entered the Head of the River Race in 1966 (with a wooden boat no less!), beginning in 284th and finishing in joint 219th. The club’s highest finish (126th) was achieved in 2015, perhaps creating the right momentum for the Henley qualification. The first entry into the women’s equivalent–WEHoRR–was in 1993 with the record place (102nd) achieved the year after in 1994. Both of these club records remain at the time of writing.
Instead, our racing calendar usually bounces between the Wear and the Tyne with occasional trips to the Tees. Sculling was the club’s strength in the early years, but somewhere along the way there was a shift to sweep fours and eights (perhaps due to a lack of working sculling boats). However, a recent win in the open doubles at Tyne New Year’s Head in 2024 provides hope that a resurgence may be on the horizon.
Hexham Regatta, held on the Tyne upstream of the BUCS Head course, is a favourite among the Durham colleges as the first post-exam regatta in June and normally a lovely summer day for novices, seniors, and spectators alike. In June 2022, SCSBC took first in the band 1 women’s eights, an incredible feat considering four novices had joined the boat just a few months prior.
The capstone of the racing season (and coincidentally the end of the academic year) goes to Durham Regatta, which has taken place on our home stretch of the river since 1834. The regatta offers events over a 700m short course and an 1800m long course (and the added challenge of racing downstream through Old Elvet Bridge, the reputed narrowest navigable bridge in Europe), both of which row past our boathouse steps. Although we haven’t been able to win some glassware in recent years, a post-pandemic resurgence, both in heats won and number of crews entered, leaves me eagerly anticipating their results over the next few years.
And while I seem to have given the impression that racing is the most important part of life at SCSBC, my favourite part has always been its low barrier to entry and the camaraderie that results. The cost to participate is comparatively low, especially for a sport notorious for being financially inaccessible. For instance, a competitive senior will pay £55 for the whole year and then half of their seat fees for any race they’d like to enter. A novice can pay just £12.50 for one term of rowing (October through December) to see if they’d like to give it a shot.
This, I believe, is what makes SCSBC (and the colleges) so special to the sport of rowing. What the club may lack in shiny equipment it makes up for in accessibility. Social events, club traditions, and the community spirit of SCSBC connect current members with each other and with the long history of Cuth’s oarspeople that came before. Canon Leach, who used the same boathouse I did over 85 years ago, wrote that “a band of us decided to represent St. Cuthbert’s at the annual Inter-varsity Boat Race. Not one of us had ever handled an oar,” and “we did not put up a very good performance, but we had achieved what we had set out to do.” In my experience, SCSBC has welcomed anyone who was keen, regardless of their experience, and gave them an opportunity to be part of something greater—and hopefully enjoy themselves in the process.
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