Henley crew reunite for club’s annual awards evening

SEVEN members of Henley Rowing Club’s first open event winning crew celebrated their 20th anniversary win at its annual dinner and awards ceremony on Saturday.

The seven joined more than 50 rowers, coaches and committee members at Badgemore Park Golf Club, where Mayor Rory Hunt was also in attendance.

The eight crew, who won the Thames Challenge Cup event at the 2005 Henley Royal Regatta, was made up of Jonny Smith Willis, Dave Lambourne, Dave Read, Nick Friend, Ariel Perez-Calderon, Jasper Hasell, Charlie Friend, Rich Guiver, and Avery Penna. Ian Desmond, 62, who was head coach when the club won its first open victory, said that everything had to “fall into place on the day” for the crew to row to the historic win.

He said: “How time has flown since we won. It’s lovely, I haven’t been to the club dinner for a few years myself and it’s nice to catch up and lovely to see the trophy again because these things are shut away from one year to the next.”

Reflecting on the achievement, Desmond recalled overcoming past disappointments and illness in the lead-up to the race. He said: “It was a big build-up to the race, it didn’t happen overnight, it was a lot of effort, a lot of spirit, a great deal of effort that went into trying to win this unique event and we managed to pull it off.

“I remember it was very emotional but we had to keep a lid on things, we knew that we were past, we knew that we could produce this win but it’s like everything, everything has to happen, you have to have a little bit of luck on your side with all these things — everything has to go absolutely right.

“The year before we had a very good crew but the fin was dented and bent and that prevented us from progressing on in the first stages.

“Even with this crew that won in 2005, we had an illness and had to change the crew around to accommodate and it set us back a little bit but we had to maintain this stiff upper lip and get through because we had no other option.

“Thank goodness Jonny Smith Willis recovered and came back into the crew as it settled back into its normal routine.

“So many things can go wrong, equipment failure, you could hit another boat on the way down to the start, geese could come onto the course and disrupt the race, all sorts of possible things can go wrong and thank goodness everything went right for us.”

Desmond, who was born and raised in Henley, retired from coaching in 2010 to focus on his work as a sole trader furniture designer and maker.

He said that he has drifted in and out of coaching since, but said that you have to “totally commit” when working towards sporting achievements.

He said: “When you do something like that you have to totally commit yourself and so do the athletes and it’s not easy for them, it’s a long hard road and it takes years and years, it doesn’t happen overnight but they trained very hard.

“All of these sporting achievements take a lot of hard work but they always conducted themselves beautifully, whether we won or whether we failed they always conducted themselves beautifully, they were the perfect club crew.”

Nick Friend, who rowed in seat four, said he enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the achievement because he said it will be “hard to replicate”.

He said: “You have to really work hard to get everyone to come along to these things, a couple of the crew were sick, so we were down two.

“It’s the only open win that Henley Rowing Club has ever had so it’s a pretty special thing for the club in its history. It’s really hard for a small club like Henley to get anywhere near that now and looking back I remember how special it was for the club.

“It means a lot to them to keep it front of mind, because sometimes clubs move on and a lot of the new people don’t really necessarily know about the club’s history and it’s good for them on nights like this to see the old guard and see the energy and I think it’s quite inspiring.

“It’s going to be very difficult to replicate and that’s why I think it should be celebrated.”

The crew re-united for a row past at the 2015 Henley Royal Regatta to mark 10 years since winning the cup and have been invited again to perform another at this year’s regatta.

The evening also celebrated 50 years of women’s rowing at the club with Paris 2024 Olympic medallists Lola Anderson and Sam Redgrave, who won a gold and silver medal respectively, also in attendance.

Anderson spoke to the guests about her journey from picking up rowing in Surbiton to compete with her twin brother to struggling to meet her own expectations after joining Newcastle University.

She said: “I had set quite a successful record for myself at juniors, and going into university, I thought I needed to carry that momentum on, and if I didn’t carry that momentum on at the same level that I had, it was going to be considered a failure.

“That’s what it felt like to me at the time. Coming into the university, I set very high expectations, and I kept struggling to live up to them. As a result, I fell more and more inwards in my own shell and retracted away from the sport. I was very fortunate to be at a club like Newcastle who cared greatly and very compassionately about their athletes as people and not just as the results that they bring the club.

“It was only after having a very long sit-down talk with my coach, friends and teammates at the time who reassured me that they saw more to me as part of the club, than just again the results of trials or the results at races that I could bring, that I then started to relax, enjoy the sport again for just the feeling of being on the water or the feeling of having fun with my friends.

“One of the main learnings that I’ve taken from my journey in sport has been that rowing is the ultimate teamwork sport. The culture, the teammates, friends, family and support that you take along the way, they are vital to the end goal, to the end racing.

“I’ve been very, very fortunate from juniors to U23s, Leander seniors, all of it, to have had amazing teammates, coaches, friends, support me along the way.”

Redgrave joined her after her speech to answer questions from the audience. Both athletes said that they hoped to compete in Los Angeles in 2028 but Redgrave explained that she had just undergone a hip operation and would be undergoing another in the future so it will depend on her recovery. She said that while she prefers racing in a four or a quad, she would be open to exploring boats she finds more challenging. She said: “The four is my perfect, my ideal. I pretty much love a quad. Doubles I find trickier.”

Anderson said that the games should be “interesting”, given that World Rowing had agreed to a request from the games organisers to hold the rowing races on a shorter course, which would be 1,500m instead of the usual 2,000m, the shortest rowing course in Olympic history.

She said: “1,500 will be interesting, specifically because all of the races before that will be to 2,000m still, so you’re going to be going into it blind.

“In previous years, coming into this Olympics, both of us had media attention or commentary based on previous races that we’ve done, sort of assessing the likelihood of what result we’re going to get, but this is surely going to be blind in comparison.”

She joked: “We’ll have to get that sprint in a little bit earlier.”

Trustee Nick Mead presented the first award of the night to Julie Norman, who won the Master’s prize for her “extraordinary commitment to the club over many, many years” for her work as club liaison and running the facilities.

The award for Senior Man of the Year was presented by Elliot Cole and Nick Friend to Tim Jost, who was unable to attend. The award was collected by John Gelling on his behalf, who won an award for organising his masters group.

The final award of the night went to Simon Hall, for outstanding contribution to the club.