Not only do small clubs offer friendships between crewmates, but more widely across junior squads as a whole too. A happy consequence of not always having as much financial weight as larger clubs means that in many cases, for ‘extracurricular’ training that is not on the water or ergs, squads will club together to do circuits or lift weights with one another. This means that athletes have an excellent opportunity to get advice and tips from those older than them and become friends with people they would hardly interact with within a larger club. Of course, this goes both ways as well, in that by the time they’re nearing the end of their junior career, older rowers can pass on all their worldly wisdom to the unsuspecting novices, which is both rewarding and entertaining at the same time.
It goes without saying that the best thing about small clubs in the atmosphere. The dynamic between teammates is something I have never experienced anywhere else, and most of this is because of the size. In seeing one another so much, it is almost impossible not to build friendships with the other people in your squad, even if you wouldn’t get on in any different environment. I’m sure part of this is from all the forced time spent together, but I do think that, particularly with smaller rowing clubs, as much of these relationships come from a genuine trust between crews. Of course, everyone in rowing knows that the boat is never going to go fast without a level of trust. But the way junior rowing is structured in most clubs, on the premise that you get bundled together as J13s and stay as a group until you leave school, offers the opportunity to explore a different type of relationship that is unique to anything else.
Training and becoming friends with rowers a couple of years older than me has been invaluable in my development both as an athlete and an individual. Being thrown into boats where you are the most inexperienced makes you appreciate where you can improve while showing how all the hard work eventually pays off. If I could advise small clubs, it would be to tell them to allow younger rowers to row with juniors just a little older than them because the experience is so valuable in so many ways.
Just because there are so many benefits, this doesn’t mean that running a small club is easy, and there are ways in which they need to be supported to maintain the environments they create. Inescapably, the defining characteristic of small firms is that they are small and so are never going to have super high-tech equipment. Membership fees and local grants primarily fund them, but this isn’t enough sometimes, as British Rowing has picked up. There is plenty of information and help about applying for further funding on their website. The positive environment they create has helped reduce the stigma around money in local sports.
Another way British Rowing provides a lot of support to local clubs is their injury advice, on which there is plenty of information again on their website. This is undoubtedly valuable to small clubs, where injuries are just as likely to be picked up but much less often can be treated effectively on-site. This could be taken a step further in providing more guidance on how to help juniors (or anyone using the club) who are struggling with mental health problems, which are as detrimental as physical injuries. In my experience, while coaches do the best they can to help in these situations, they simply do not have access to the tools they need to properly deal with issues of this nature. Of course, this is not the fault of small clubs, who go above and beyond to protect their athletes’ well-being, but it is an area where a real difference could be made with minimal investment of both time and money.
In general, small clubs are incredible. Not only do they compete with those who access to facilities most could only dream of, but they put up a good fight and quite regularly come out on top. More than this, the environment they create is different to anything else I have ever experienced, a place to nurture both athletic and personal development with people who trust and care about one another. Without sounding too clichéd, the might of the small club is something to be reckoned with.
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