Newcastle to defend their boat race title against Durham

Apr 29 2010 by Kerry Wood, The Journal

FORMER schoolmates will leave their friendships to one side as they go head-to-head in the big student boating clash of the North East.

It’s oars at the ready after the challenge was laid down yesterday for the hotly-contested race between teams at Newcastle and Durham universities.

For the first time in the contest’s 14 years Newcastle enter the pre-race warm-up as reigning champions having doggedly thrashed their way to the finish line last year to become kings of the water.

The teams from the North East’s premier rowing universities will battle it out on the River Tyne on May 9 in the annual clash of oars.

At the traditional launch at the Quayside it fell to 20-year-old Benji Dawes, as president of the Durham University Boat Club, to challenge his former school friend and now rowing rival Andrew Corrigan, head of last year’s victorious Newcastle University Boat Club.

The presidents first met as pupils of St Leonard’s Comprehensive School, in Durham. Andrew, 21, tried his hand at rowing at the school but gave it up in favour of rugby until he got to Newcastle University.

Now a civil and structural engineering student at Newcastle, he is confident of his club’s ability, he said: “This year’s boat race is massive for us, and we will be going all out to retain the title in 2010.

“Our form so far this year has been very strong. Our rowers put in some of their best performances in recent years at the Head of the River races in London in March, where the men’s squad finished three places ahead of Durham and won the Halladay Trophy for the fastest British University crew at intermediate level.”

Having triumphed in the race for more than a decade Durham experienced defeat last year.