THE SPORT OF ROWING Goblets in 1904,955 37-year-old Berry left Kensington Rowing Club in Hammersmith to join Thames Rowing Club down the river in Putney in search of stronger teammates. Even though he and his new pair-partner, Karl Vernon, whose nickname was “the Bean”956 because he was a vegetarian, “enjoyed great success, they never seemed to impress the Thames coaches.”957 Page: “This was not altogether surprising since Berry was now in his fortieth year and very light, while Bean, never a stylist at the best of times, was still a comparative novice.”958 So in the fall of 1907, Beresford bought a coxless-four and formed his own crew consisting of himself, Vernon, Charlie Rought and Bruce Logan. Page: “Bean said that Rought had been dropped from the Second Eight and was about to leave the Club, while Logan did not want to row in a Henley eight. Logan was put to stroke the four, and Berry coached from the bow-seat.”959 Berry used long slides, wider spread and shorter, lighter oars with a heavier load he had seen used by Ghent, Belgium’s dominating Club Nautique de Gand.960 Many years later, Beresford wrote of his approach to force application. Beresford: “An upward stretch of the arms before gripping the water quickly as possible should make a clean catch of water, and by finishing as hard as possible with the outside hand will get a hard finish, being sure of making a true finish by the blade leaving the water square. A real hard finish makes a good beginning if forward sliding is controlled properly.”961 The last sentence means that a strong Schubschlag effort to the release will make the boat run, setting up the next entry. 1908 “In the spring [of 1908], his four competed at Amsterdam,962 and to the surprise of the Thames establishment, they won, beating a Ghent four drawn from their 1906 and 1907 Grand winners.963 At Henley, Logan and Rought were also included in the Thames R.C. entry in the Grand Challenge Cup, and this proved to be their four’s undoing in the Stewards’ Cup, the winner of which would represent Britain in the 1908 Olympics. Logan and Rought had just raced in their eight when they had to climb into the Beresford Four to face a fresh Magdalen College, Oxford, crew in their Stewards’ heat. The race was very close all the way, and they pushed Magdalen to a new course record time before losing narrowly. Magdalen won the final the next day in a much slower time. Later in the summer, they comfortably won the 1908 Olympic title. Olympics of this era allowed countries to enter two boats in an event, but Berry’s four was not selected as the second British Coxless-Four. “This caused a great furor in the papers, and they were generally felt to have been shabbily treated.”964 In this way, Beresford, at age 39, missed the 1908 London Olympics with the rowing events held at Henley. 955 with pair-partner Harry Blackstaffe 956 Page, p. 10 957 www.thamesrc.demon.co.uk 958 Page, p. 44 959 Ibid. 960 See Chapter 72. 961 J. Beresford, Senior, Elder Berries: The fruit of ripe experience, Rowing, First Autumn Number, 1950, pp. 257-8 962 the Holland Beker Regatta. See Chapter 72. 963 Ibid. 964 www.thamesrc.demon.co.uk 256
