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Oarsome effort!
Dec 1 2004
By Roger Clarke, Evening Mail
The Kingsbury Road in Erdington is about as far as you are going to get, in sporting terms, from the banks of the Thames at Henley or Putney.
Cricket with dustbins as wickets, or footy with coats as goal posts yes, but rowing . . . enter Sir Steve Redgrave and Kingsbury School and Sports College.
Sir Steve did not actually enter personally, but he did send along five indoor rowing machines through the charitable trust he has formed to take rowing into innner city schools and make it available to the masses.
So, for the first time ever, the name of Kingsbury appeared at the British Indoor Rowing Championships at the NIA among the elite of the sport, competing against schools which have their own boats, boathouses and even stretches of river - a long throw from Witton Lakes.
Not that reputations count for much when Brummies decide to go for it and the boys' team not only came up as top dogs in Birmingham in the Redgrave Team Challenge but third in the country, with Stephen Johnson, Lionel Ashmore, Matthew Black and Lee Reading only losing out to Latymer School on the Thames in Hammersmith and Lymm High School in Cheshire, which both have well established rowing clubs.
The girls entered as individuals and Alexandra Davies, aged 14, came home in a creditable 44th place in the country, with many of those above her not only a year older but also members of rowing clubs.
Greg Bartlett, Director of Sport at the school, said: "They have done a bit of training after school and we have worked it into the PE schedule for them and we are delighted.
"They have never done anything like this before and they went along in front of 4,000 people and did well with the boys coming third against posh rowing schools in the Under-16s.
"It was quite a thing for Alexandra to do it on her own when the lads were in a relay and it is a lot easier when there is a group of you to gee each other up. To go and do it on your own is quite tough."
Now Mr Bartlett is looking to expand the horizons with a taste of real boats on real water.
The school has no boats but he has started to investigate the possibilities of getting over to Edgbaston reservoir. It is still a long way from Henley - but it is a few strokes nearer.
