There must
be hundreds of other races involving boats on the Thames, and thousands on
other rivers around the world, but there is only one Boat Race. The arrogance
continues in its official title, the Universities’ Boat Race, as if there were
still only two. (I’m reminded of a headmaster I worked for once who, asked
which university an applicant for a teaching post had attended, answered
‘Neither’.) But perhaps the arrogance is justified by the archetypal nature of
the occasion. Two teams of eight men, a river, and a trial of physical
strength: for all the chatter about tactics with which the commentators try to
fill up the spaces, that’s about it. There’s also something almost levelling
about two universities predicated on intellectual elitism, at the heart of a
society where status is determined nowadays far more by mental than physical
prowess, deciding their relative merits by muscle alone.
It is a
thoroughly London occasion. As part of the pre-match warm-up, a reporter
interviewed spectators on the terrace of a pub by Hammersmith. ‘The Boat Race
attracts interest from all over the world,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ve got
people here from Russia, Poland, Australia, New Zealand.’ She made it sound as
if they had flown in long haul specifically to stand in the rain and watch the
grunting crews strain by for three minutes. More likely it was their local
where they were having their regular Sunday afternoon drink, and were wondering
bemusedly where all the extra people had come from. Thus the multinational
population of the city dips in and out of native traditions.
It’s a
London occasion too because it centres on the Thames, which runs both literally
and metaphorically through the city: the foundation of its prosperity from
Roman times till the closure of the docks in the 1960s, the most common mode of
transport for hundreds of years, the silver ribbon that guided the Luftwaffe by
moonlight to the near destruction of London in the Blitz, and the great
dividing line that denominates social standing. The Thames is especially
important to me because I live three hundred yards from it, and cross it daily
via Richmond Bridge for shopping, travel, church, and my daughter’s school. Every
working day I cycle its towpath up to Hammersmith Bridge, covering half the
Boat Race route.
And, though
I never picked up an oar in my three years there, Cambridge is important to me,
too. It was a formative time in my life, the source of lasting friendships and a
space to read and think. The letters after my name haven’t done my career any
harm either. So I feel a visceral loyalty to the Light Blues. (The colouring is
interesting. The two institutions are essentially the same, different shades of
one colour, but with the suggestion that Cambridge is a little lightweight by
comparison to Oxford’s Dark Blue, having been around a mere eight hundred years
to Oxford’s nine hundred and something.)
Oh, and the
result? After a clash of oars five minutes in, one of the Cambridge crew
slipped from his seat and lost his rigger, the metal hook which keeps his oar
in place. (At first I heard the commentator say he had ‘lost his rigour’, which
lent a rather moralistic tone to proceedings). Thereafter, Cambridge, who never
had much chance, had no chance at all, and the race was over. Oxford eventually
won by eleven lengths, the biggest margin since 1973, and their fifth victory
in the last seven years. Five minutes! All the early starts, the duvets
abandoned, the textbooks untouched, the girlfriends ignored, the beer undrunk,
all gone in five minutes. I hope they enjoyed the process. And I hope that the
Boat Race will still be going in another hundred and sixty years, and that Cambridge
will start winning before then.
Next Sunday
it’s off the river and onto the streets for the London Marathon, a much more
inclusive, civic and generous spirited sporting event. But Lifelong Londoner
will be in New York, the second most exciting city in the world.
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