Stourport's Resounding Regatta Success ... 1979

The enthusiasm of crowd, crews and organisers made Stourport Regatta a resounding success, even though the entries were down slightly on last year.
Under the coordination of the club captain, Fred Caswill, 57 clubs from as far afield as Manchester and Devon turned out in the sticky summer weather to compete in what is still England’s largest regatta.
Despite the pressures of playing hosts, Stourport Boat Club reached 11 finals, winning the new Veteran C Eights and the Elite B Coxless Fours, and in an exciting race Bewdley beat Birmingham by half a length in the novice fours.
Worcester did very well too, winning the Veteran C Fours, the Elite B Eights and the Veteran B Eights, collecting the Victor Ludorum Trophy for the most number of points over the two days.
The racing was extremely close, especially on Sunday but from time to time it was disrupted by pleasure boat traffic, and one race had to re-row three times because amateur craft got in the way. The race was stopped and David Ambrose of Ealing, supposedly one of the fittest of the Horseferry crew, was taken to Kidderminster General Hospital where he was found to be suffering from heat exhaustion and lack of food, he was not detained and was able to rejoin racing on the following day.
Another mishap occurred when two midland clubs, Nottingham Britannia and Nottingham and Union, had their boats damaged in an accident on the M5 on the way to the regatta in the early hours of Saturday morning, about £1000 worth of damage was caused to the bow sections of two boats worth £2000 each when an articulated lorry ran into the trailer on which they were travelling. Both crews were hoping to borrow boats for their races, and Nottingham and Union went on to win four of their events. In fact this was the second time that the Nottingham trailer had run into trouble - one of its boats was damaged a few weeks ago when a vicar’s car took the stern off at Bewdley.
The private sculling match between Kingston and Agecroft was one of the most exciting finals of the weekend. Both crews were dead level at the bridge, Kingston’s sculler got ahead by a nose, then they crashed into each other before the finish and floated over the line, it was decided to give the race to Kingston as they had been ahead before the fateful crash.
The Stourport - Stratrford-upon-Avon crew who beat Worcester so convincingly in the Veteran B Eights is to row at the World Veteran Regatta at Nottingham on September 21.
Kidderminster Shuttle 17.8.79