Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics by Martin Brandon-Bravo

City was like stepping back into what at club dinners he always described as that glorious Victorian era. I’d joined the club committee, I suppose representing the younger members, and when it was suggested that the club invested in a gas water heater for the showers, he threw up his hands in horror at such a modern unnecessary extravagance.
    In 1957 at the age of 25, I was elected Club Captain, something I could never have dreamed of, but in truth there were senior members of the club with their own agenda, and unbeknown to me, I was chosen as a temporary candidate until they could chose someone of their vintage and standing. Other senior members did not like what they saw happening, and a row broke out between these two senior groups, and I wasn’t sufficiently experienced to find a way of nipping it in the bud before it got out of hand. Sadly it did, and five or six of these top guys resigned, including two top athletes Nick Clay and Peter Acred, who were an outstanding pair, and the former perhaps the most outstanding and upcoming single sculler in the country who was quite capable of going all the way to the top.

    The Head of the Thames - I’m at No.3
     
    The guy who effectively drove out these members was a past captain Freddy Brooks, and I admit I did not and could not stand up to him at that time. Happily he was posted abroad to Germany and with his presence removed I set about rebuilding the club. There still remained a good spirit in the club, and we steadily rebuilt our numbers, and rebuilding our reputation in the world of provincial club rowing, putting a decent crew into the Royal Regatta in four of my five years in office. The real breakthrough came when two guys from Leicester who rowed as a pair on the canal that ran through that city, wanted to come to Nottingham for the clear opportunities we could provide. One, Peter Bickley stroked the club eight, and his pair partner Richard Waite, eventually won the Wyfold Cup at the Royal in 1963, going on to represent Great Britain at the world Championships that year, and again on other occasions in a pair with Mike Sweeney who stroked Cambridge three times, and who is now the Chairman of Stewards at the Royal. These two were just the catalyst the club needed, and they helped set the example to the rest of the club as to what could be achieved, even by a comparatively small club. Peter stroked the eight at Reading and when the crew beat the much vaunted Eton Eight, we knew we had arrived.
    Richard’s career with us was even more outstanding, being part of that 1960 eight, then stroking the club Wyfold Four at Henley for three years, winning in 1963. He raced for the goblets for three years in 64/66, firstly with our Carl Unwin, and twice with Nick Nicholson, who had paired with Marshall from the Britannia club at the Rome Olympics. I arranged for the local boat builder to build a pair for them, for the princely sum of £215, and named it the Sally Anne after my long suffering, but very understanding wife. We sold it some twenty five years later to Newark Rowing club as a training boat for £200. A boat like that today could cost anything between four and six thousand pounds dependant on the standard of competition it was planned for, illustrating how times and costs have changed. In the late summer of 1962, I was lucky enough to drop into a four stroked by Richard ( Dicky) winning the West of England Cup against our friendly rivals from Derby in the final, and again on the Monday at Ross on Wye.
    We set up a combined club arrangement in the region in order to give any outstanding oarsman the chance to race at the highest level, creating on the advice of Graham Ricketts, then Chairman of Stewards, firstly a new registered club under the title of Nottingham City Rowing Club, and subsequently Midland Nautilus. Under that latter title they raced for the top Stewards Trophy at the Royal in 1967, winning it in 1968. I believe they should have won the event in 67, but