New College Boat Club

New College Boat Club

Shield
New College Boathouse (right half) and rowing blade
Location	Boathouse Island
Coordinates	51°44′34″N1°14′57″W / 51.74290°N 1.24910°W / 51.74290; -1.24910
Home water	River Thames (known in Oxford as the Isis)
Founded	1840 (1840) [1]
Key people	Charlie Orton (President) Felix Gibbons, Christoph Allin, Tom Bosworth (Men's Captains) Kate McKee, Amelia Veal (Women's Captains)
Head of the River	Men: 1887, 1896-99, 1901, 1903, 1904, 1911-13, 1921, 1922, 1937, 1950, 1986 Women: 2004, 2005
University	University of Oxford
Colours
Affiliations	British Rowing (boat code NEC) King's College BC (Sister college)
Website	www.newcollegeboatclub.co.uk

New College Boat Club (NCBC) is the rowing club for members of New College, Oxford. The club's existence can be dated to 1840 when it first raced on The Isis in Oxford. ^[1]

The club shares a boathouse on The Isis (part of the Thames) with Balliol College Boat Club, as well as using boat racks at Godstow for the Men's and Women's first boats.

History

A New College IV in rowing blazers in 1860

Partly due to the college's status as one of the smallest colleges in Oxford and its disproportionately small number of undergraduates, New College's initial presence and performance in college bumps racing was poor. Their first recorded Eights campaign in 1840 started and ended at the bottom of the bumps chart ('footship'), and involved several days where the college failed to put out a crew. Following this, New entered a boat in just two of the following 23 years of Eights, despite a rule that permitted them and other weaker colleges to form composite crews.

An improvement occurred in the late 1860s, as after decades of sporadic entries, New College entered crews for every Eights campaign from 1864 to 1867 and 1869 onwards. Their fortunes were initially somewhat erratic: the club might fall or rise as much as seven spots in a given year (Eights consisted of eight days of racing until 1878 and six days thereafter). However, a rapid ascent in the Torpids chart from footship in 1875 to headship in 1882 indicated the club’s changing fortunes. A few years later, Eights performance also stabilised at a high level, when NCBC climbed to third place for the first time.

1885 proved to be a watershed, after which the club enjoyed prominence at or near the top of the Eights table for decades: 1887 marked New College’s first headship, one of several over the following years, with the club often staying at the Head of the River for several years at a time, as occurred from 1896 to 1899 and 1911 to 1913. From 1886 to 1922, New College always placed third or better in Eights.

A key feature of the pre-war era was the development of an intense rivalry with Magdalen College. Magdalen, like New, finished in the top three at Eights without fail from 1886 to 1913: in each year, the clubs raced from adjacent bunglines and either threatened or achieved a bump on each other. Given their unparalleled dominance (the remaining spot in the top three was held by several different colleges over this period), it was natural that a 1900 account referred to the two colleges as ‘the two great rivals of later days’. ^[2] This sporting enmity was later cemented in the Stockholm Olympics incident of 1912. ^[1]

The 1912 Stockholm Olympics

New College Boat Club, representing Great Britain, winning the Silver medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics

The New College Boat Club represented Great Britain at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm and won the silver medal in the men's eight. ^[3]

The two British crews - New College, and a Leander Club boat largely drawn from Magdalen College, Oxford - were the favourites for gold so started at opposite ends of the draw. They both worked up through the competition to make the final.

According to New College records, the final featured controversy over lane choice. The course in Stockholm was not straight, and one of the two lanes was clearly favoured, the other requiring the cox to steer around a protruding boathouse and then back under a bridge. Before the final, the two British captains met to toss for lanes. New College won the toss and following gentlemanly tradition offered the choice of lanes to their opponents, who would - in a gentlemanly fashion - refuse this offer. However the Leander/Magdalen College captain accepted this offer and chose the better lane. Leander went on to win the gold medal, leaving New College with the silver. ^[4]

According to New College tradition, King Gustav V of Sweden was so disheartened by this display of ungentlemanly conduct that, as a consolation, he presented his colours to New College; ever since then, New College have raced in purple and gold, the colours of the royal house of Sweden.^{[ clarification needed ]} A further tradition has been the adoption of the toast: 'God Damn Bloody Magdalen!', the supposed words of the New College stroke Robert Bourne as they crossed the line. The abbreviation GDBM has been used commonly ever since, and is still on bottom of the NCBC letterhead. ^[4]

Henley Royal Regatta

The club has won four events at Henley Royal Regatta in its history.

Event	Win	2nd
Grand Challenge Cup	1897	1889, 1895, 1904
Ladies' Challenge Plate	1900, 1950	1908
Stewards' Challenge Cup	1912, 1913	1894, 1897, 1898
Visitors' Challenge Cup	1894, 1898	1899, 1939, 1946, 1948

Recent form

Torpids

In 2023, the men’s first VIII climbed three places to finish 10^th in Torpids. The women’s first VIII started 12^th and dropped two places to finish 2^nd in Division 2. The men’s and women’s second boats are in Division 4, placing 4^th and 7^th respectively.

Eights

In 2024 the club entered and qualified eight crews for Summer Eights, the most of any club on the river. The men’s first VIII climbed four places to 10^th and the women’s first VIII climbed one place to 13^th. The men’s second VIII bumped Somerville’s first boat to finish 11^th in Division 3, while the women’s second VIII finished 5^th in Division 5. ^[5]

Blues

A number of members of New College have gone on to row for the University. ^[1]

Year	Oxford University Boat Club
1853-55	W.F. Short
1856	G. Bennett
1877-79	F.M. Beaumont (cox)
1882-83	G.C. Bourne
1884-87	Douglas McLean (President '84-85)
1885-57	Hector McLean (President '87)
1888	S.R. Fothergill, A. Steward (cox)
1889	F.C. Drake
1889-91	Lord Ampthill (President 1890)
1889-92	J.P. Heywood-Londsdale (cox)
1890	C.H. Hornby
1892-95	C.M. Pitman (President 1894-95)
1893-94	J.A. Morrison
1894-97	W.E. Crum (President 1895-96)
1894-85	T.H.E. Stretch
1895-98	C.K. Philips (President '97)
1895	C.P. Serocold (cox)
1896-1897	J.J.J. de Knoop
1897-98	G.O.C. Edwards
1898-99	R.O. Pitman
1899-1900	C.E. Johnston
1900-01	R. Culme-Seymour
1901	A. de L. Long, James Younger
1951	Stokes, L.A.F., Hawkes, M.J., Turner, C.G., Hayes,J.
1952	Stokes, L.A.F.
1953	Byatt, R.A.
1967-68	D. Topolski
1981	R.P. Yonge
1982	R.C. Clay, R.P. Yonge, Sarah Talbot
1983	G.R.D. Jones, R.P. Yonge
1984	R.C. Clay, G.R.D Jones
1988	S. Joshua Lewis [ citation needed ]
1993	Alison Cox (nee Palmer)
1994	Alison Cox (nee Palmer, President '94)
2000	Stephanie Frackowiak
2015-16	Samuel Collier (cox)
2016	Joanneke Jansen
2017	Rebecca Esselstein
2022	Erin Reelick

References

1. Rashdall, Hastings & Rait, Robert S. (1901). New College. London: F. E. Robinson.
2. Sherwood, W.E. (1900). Oxford rowing: a history of boat-racing at Oxford from the earliest times, with a record of the races compiled principally from official sources. Oxford: H. Frowde. ISBN   978-1167020148.
3. Swedish Olympic Committee (1913). Erik Bergvall (ed.). The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912 (PDF). Stockholm: Wahlstrom and Widstrand. p. 667. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2008.
4. Fishburn, Victoria (30 July 2012). "Stockholm 1912 – London 2012: An Olympic Centenary, Part 1". Hear the Boat Sing.
5. "Eights 2023". Oxford Bumps Charts. Retrieved 20 October 2023.

External links

• New College Boat Club Website
• Oxford Bumps Charts