Old Blades and the Ball 2014

71 competitors at Old Blades, 121 rowers coming to the ball, 3 new trophies, 13 new blazers and many many many beers...

Shit tomorrow is gonna be good

Varsity 2014

For the first time in 5 years...

DMURC WON VARSITY!!!

Lemme give you the breakdown...

Senior Women's 4+
DMU got ULBC off the line and pretty much held it all the way to the finish.
Both crews looking pretty good over the line but De Montfort held off Uni for a 5 length victory.

Fresher Girls 8+
A fast start from Leicester saw them leap in front to begin with. DMU fought back to gain clear water up to the second red bridge. An unlucky crab from DMU gave Uni a chance to nip by and they took a 1/2 length victory.

Fresher Boys 8+
After some clashing and a re start Leicester Uni got in front with DMU hot on their tails. There was some more contact with the umpires yelling to stop but unfortunately in all the confusion DMU rowed ahead and crossed the line with an extremely comfortable margin, only to be disqualified for not stopping after the clash.
Unlucky but that's why we have umpires.

Fresher Girls 4+
Leicester, for a second year running, had an equipment failure in the fresher girls 4+ (they need to take a look at their boats before hand methinks). After postponing the race it didn't work out well for them anyway as DMU stormed through for a hefty 7 length victory.

Fresher Boys 4+
A classy looking boys 4+ shot out of the blocks and held Uni all the way through the course. Leicester were behind by only 1 1/2 lengths but caught a crab sending them into the bank under the second red bridge. DMU rowed home for an 'easily' victory.

Senior Women's 8+
Both crews battled it out over the varsity course but DMU managed to ease away in the final stages to win by 1 1/4 lengths.

Senior Men's 8+
DMU put out a stronger crew that had the ULBC guys from the start. They rowed home to an extremely comfortable 8 length victory. Great work.

Senior Men’s 4+

Surrender monkeys forfeited the race after their stroke man decided he'd rather race with a different club that day... they couldn't find another replacement apparently, he must have been 'really' good

Mixed 8+
Surrender monkeys forfeited the race after they realised the domination was all too much

To be fair there was a lot of good will from Leicester Uni all day and they've had some troubles to cope with this year through SU issues, hopefully the racing next year will be good close fought racing.
DMU have got an incredibly strong club and managed to use that to their advantage and secured a great 7-2 win.

Record entry!

This year a whopping 21 crews with 72 people have signed up to smash it down the river Soar on 5th April.
A good contingent of that remains old boys and girls who have mustered strength in their maturity to give the current club a run for it's money.

Rob Fox has managed to get together two 4+'s to compete in The President's Goblets. Guys who now have their own sproglets (who you might be able to hear shouting for their daddies down the course) who haven't rowed since graduation will battle to win the new trophies that will appear this year.

The new club blazers will also make an appearance on the weekend, you might see Jordan strutting down the embankment with a wry smile on his face as he wears my bloody blood sweat and tears across his shoulders (it's been a 3 year nightmare to get it organised)

Old blades who have also signed up for the Ball in the evening:
Caitlin "DP forever... dirty girl" Bloom
❤ Bob "The chest" Fairclough ❤
Dan "Gravy" Johnstone
Jack "One up the bum no harm done army boy" Bowden
Ryan "Deep booming voice" Davies
Mark "Freshers will definitely drink from my chest" Cooper
Rob "Threesome - you hero" Janeiro
Tammy "Gym status" Crain
Joe "I'm sure you all call me a lot of things" Brunton
Becca "Got naked at Peterborough 1" Cox
Kate "Got naked at Peterborough 2" Martin
Emma "Got naked at Peterborough 3" Rockall
Demi "O'Neill fetish" Johnson
Cat "Tideway fetish" Maude
Tom "Head of hair" Catnach
Rosie "Stop making fun of Dan" Kirk
James "London boy" Beddows
Anna "London girl" Wallis
Andy "Spreadsheet" Capewell
Ell "Does a great tour of Batman's mansion" Ryder
Matt "She doesn't even go here" Hamlyn
Sophie "Wye-aye pet" Richardson
Meg "Rows more now shes not at Uni" Andrews
Rachael "Wow Phil, your Dyson is huuuuge" East
Phil "Let my hoover suck you " Reilly

Henley Royal 2013

A quick update on a fantastic weekend at HRR this year. 11 old blades showed up with 3 current members also joining the party. Many glasses of Pimms were consumed and the day was spent sitting on the riverbank watching some great racing
In particular the races that grabbed everyone's attention were the GB four (racing as Brookes and UL) coming back from a length down to the Kiwi LW four in the last 50m to win by just 3ft in the Stewards' Challange Cup and also Imperial out classing everyone in the Prince Albert.

I personally had a fantastic weekend managing to meet Kath Grainger in the crew area and Tim Foster in the Stewards stands, Elliot also managed to get a cheeky wave from Jurgen Grobler after shouting at him from the bank.

A great weekend and a big thanks to James Beddows and his parents for being excellent hosts and putting up with us all. An event for the future? I think so.

Joe

DMURC summer smash round up

Here’s a summary of what the club has been up to these last past months…

A hard winter season leading up to Easter has paid off for a fruitful summer of pot hunting. Crews have won at every regatta the club has entered and novices were lost all over the place.

Leicester Regatta

DMURC - massive underdogs. We won the Leicester boat race.

Enough said.

(British Rowing article - http://www.britishrowing.org/news/2013/april/24/dmu-wins-first-leicester-boat-race-crown)

Shrewsbury Regatta

As always Shrewsbelly never fails to impress. Old boys turned out for some great catch ups and the fresher challenge was epic.

I thought it only right that the winning crews told their own versions of their exploits at Shrewsbury.

Keiron’s account of the Nov.4+ DMU vs DMU final (yes, even though there were loads of other crews in the category this happened again, must be the 500th time this has materialised) - on the Saturday we won our first round and semi-final pretty comfortably and started to click together as a crew, only having two outings beforehand and myself and Michael having rowed much less this year due to injuries or what not the final we were against st hughs college, who had beaten Shrewsbury school, and were neck and neck for the first 750 odd metres where their fitness and composure shone through for them to take victory, Oli (cox) reckons we would have been perhaps only about half a length behind had our blades not clashed with an 8 who had strayed too far off of the boating point by the bridge, where we were 2 strokes into our big push. learnt from it, we were too keen on the start and needed to compose ourselves next time first round the next morning, bit hung over, Michael takes a few air strokes on the draws, cox calls us to stop, realigns us and we hoon it for a good 15-20 strokes, catch up, take the lead and win by 4.5 lengths; good recovery. Semi-final we had an immense start and flew for the first 400 metres, Oli saying it’s the smoothest crew he's ever felt in a boat and we were flying, start was immense and we win comfortably. Final against the other DMU crew, ahead just the entire way, final 150m Oli calls a final push, we probably thought it was a push we needed to win rather than to hold off as we about quarter of a length ahead coming round the bend and under the bridge, lose a bit of composure and the other crews fitness and more outings showed and they knicked it by a photo finish, on paper though we should've got smacked. made 2 finals to lose them by very little, but fucking gutted. Crew: Russell (stroke), Keiron (3), Michael (2), bob (bow). cox in first round of both days: Chloe Santiago, cox in semi's and finals of both days: Oli Collington - rowed in Wyvern.

Dan’s account - After a morning of fairly relaxed races, it was a DMU vs DMU final in the men's novice coxed fours. Our boat was given the quarry station and so the other crew were granted a couple of boat lengths lead at the start. Thanks to a good start we managed to reduce this lead to about half a length, which the opposing crew held up until the Shrewsbury bridge. At the bridge we called for a push and brought the other crew on dead level, bow ball to bow ball. It was soon a wind to the finish from both crews with the crowd on the bank roaring. Crossing the line neither crew was sure who won and the mention of a "dead heat" over the tannoy caused all competitors to despair at the thought of doing it again. As we drifted down stream, utterly spent, the silence was broken by the announcement "And the winner of the novice men's coxed fours, by a distance of two fee, was crew number 50". With this realization that we had lost our novices the boat erupted into cheering and splashing.

Cat’s race - This is the four that was selected to the East Midlands Regional Training camps, and have been together since early October. So it is understandable that the four stepped up to their final on the Saturday of Shrewsbury with high hopes (if not nervous stomachs) for a win after winning their last two races with flying colours. Their opposition, Agecroft RC, was a length behind during the majority of the race making the girls believed they had it in the bag. But after a sudden technical failure with Taylors oar, they didn’t even get to cross the finish line. The tears were well earned and a determination to win on the 600m Sunday race course was born. With only race between them and the Sunday final, they smashed both and came away with a status change to IM2 pots and points. Well done ladies! - Stroke to Bow-Demi Johnson, Catherine Maude, Rachel Taylor, Amy Mathers, William Lewis (Cox) Elliott Ryder & Charlie Fox (Keen coaches)

Monmouth Regatta

To sum up this regatta everyone came back with a tan like the members of TOWIE… only real.

The Women senior 8+ won, the crew consisted of: Amelia Lohan, Emma Smith, Julia Jackson, Hazel Ward, Sophie Richardson, Rachael East, Chloe Santiago, Rosie Kirk and coxed by Wills.

The senior men who very narrowly missed out at Shrews won as well, the crew consisted of: Nov.4+ Russell Theobald, Keiron Piper, Matt Hamlyn, Bob Fairclough and coxed by Chloe Santiago.

Peterborough Regatta

Always an heroic way to end regatta season with lots of racing and the committee handover on Saturday night.

I also overheard a randomer say “De Montfort are looking good this year” which is always sweet.

All crews did well over the two days but didn’t manage to take a win on the Saturday.

The Womens senior 4+, who competed at Met the previous day, won their WIM3.4+’s category convincingly.

Have a look at the past victories page in the history section of this site to see all the wins this year.

Old Blades entries are coming in

As the regatta closes in, a considerable amount of entries have already been taken. The mixed 8+ is full and the Women's and Open 4+ categories have 2 more spaces to fill.
Celebs such as Rob Fox (past men's captain), James Bowie (past men's captain) and Mark Body (past president) will be featuring, there's no doubt they'll be showing the young'uns how to do it properly after over a decade out of the boat.
Other old blades include an Open 4+ consisting of Jones, Reilly, Waston and Koszulinski and a Women's 4+ consisting of Bowery, Crain, Skiba and Tulley - all who are tingling to get back racing in their old DMU boats again, at least they should be.

The new DeMontfort 8+ will be featuring as part of the regatta, those lucky enough to be racing in it will be rest assured by knowing that the wing riggers will definitely shave off at least half a second over the 700m varsity course.

The entries will shut on the 19th April so you've got 11 days to get your crews together.
To find out more information please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/dmurcregatta/

Alumni boat gets Lincoln course record

The Leicester City senior men's 8+ matched the course record at Lincoln Head over the weekend, rowing 5½km upstream in 20:56 and beating second placed Nottingham Trent University by 1min 3seconds.

The boat contained ex-men’s captain Rob Fox, ex-president Joe Brunton, circuits coach Dave Smith, current treasurer Zak Iliffe, ex-coach Graham Wright, Adam Koszulinkski and Ben Townsend (rowing with Tom Clark, Oxford University and cox John Sephton, Oxford University).

The crew had the best row they’ve had so far this season and it puts them in a great position for the Head of the River race next Saturday.

Such Alumni will also be featuring in the Old Blades regatta on Saturday 27^th April, a great event in which any old competitor of the club can come and race in De Montfort boats – please find details here: http://www.dmurc.moonfruit.com/#/dmurc-regatta/4570407495