Former international rower Angus Kennedy is Medway Towns Rowing Club's new coach and says he wants to take his new club to Henley in three years. The only problem is that right now, it has no members.
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00:00 Well I started, my brother got me into rowing as a sort of joke down in London at the Lee
00:04 Rowing Club and he said why don't you just try this for a laugh. I fell in, I was really
00:07 useless and then one thing led to another and then I won my first race and that was
00:12 it, I was hooked. And then I kind of went up to Notts County and then to cut a long
00:16 story short, yes I've managed to get quite a high level in rowing. And when I came across
00:21 that line first at Henley, when I won my Henley medal, I just want people to feel what that's
00:27 like because that's really special, so that's why we're here really.
00:30 You say you got quite high with it, you rowed for the country.
00:34 Yes I did, yeah. It's not the sort of thing you tell people in pub, hey I did this, because
00:39 it's nice to be a bit modest but we've got our little cabinet, I've got my cabinet, I've
00:43 got my medals, so I have rowed for Great Britain, yes.
00:46 And now you're here with the Medway Towns Rowing Club, tell me how that partnership
00:50 came about.
00:51 Well we tried rowing a while back but then unfortunately I had to have some arm surgery
00:56 so I had a ligament so I couldn't do anything. And George came down and he wants to row,
01:01 he's very keen, so I just started off with taking my son down, hey let's get you in a
01:05 boat, let's see what's happened. It was driven by him. And so we went down to the Medway
01:10 Towns Rowing Club, they're really friendly, really nice people, but they just didn't have
01:14 enough, you know, it's like there weren't enough people there. So they said, you know,
01:19 why don't you come and be the coach down here, you know, we'd love to have a coach here and
01:23 just sort of fire things up a bit. So that was like last week. So things are happening
01:27 quite fast.
01:28 Yeah, pretty quick. So George, you were inspired by your dad to take part yourself, is he any
01:33 good?
01:34 He is very good, yeah. He's a good coach and a good father.
01:36 Okay, great. No, that's brilliant. So you've not been too long taking it on yourself, how
01:42 have you been finding it?
01:43 Well I started rowing at school about two years ago and ever since I started I just
01:49 haven't been able to get off the water. Whenever I look at the river I'm always like, when
01:53 can I next get on the water?
01:55 I mean, it's quite a lovely river as well, isn't it? You get all sorts there. We were
01:59 hearing over the weekend there's some dolphins in there, you get the big cargo ships, river
02:04 sailboats, all that kind of thing. So to be a part of that, tell us what is the River
02:07 Medway actually like?
02:08 Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult piece of water at times, but if you get it right, you get
02:13 high tide, low wind, it's perfect. Like the last couple of days have been beautiful, haven't
02:17 they? The mirror, when you see the water, if anyone drives over that bridge and it's
02:20 really like a flat mirror, that's what we love. It's a good piece of water. I mean,
02:24 there are issues with things going into the river, like sewage and stuff, which isn't
02:29 good, but we're hoping that that's going to get cleaned up a bit because there's a lot
02:32 of things that need to happen in order for us to make this work. Because it's a big objective
02:37 that we're setting ourselves. We set a high goal here in Kent and it's good, we can't
02:41 wait, but it's a good club, they're nice people.
02:44 You've got a taster session happening this weekend for people to come out and try it
02:48 out for the first time. George, you're fairly new to this, what's your advice to somebody
02:52 that's going to come out and try it for the first time?
02:55 Don't worry about if you find it really difficult, just enjoy yourself and remember, it takes
03:00 time.
03:01 As well, I was looking up, there's a film that's recently come out about the US Olympic
03:06 squad and Joel Edgerton's character, he plays the coach, so he's quite shouty, quite strict
03:12 with them. What style of coach are you with the group, which style would you like to be?
03:19 One thing about, I think there is definitely a lack of coaches in the whole of Medway and
03:23 Kent, a lot of the clubs here, they really need coaches and it's a real problem. But
03:28 my style, I'm not going to be shouting at people, but I do get really passionate about
03:32 the sport and I'm in there saying 'come on, we're going to win this' and I get really
03:36 carried away because I want to be in that boat with them. So I'm very, very passionate
03:41 about it. But I think my style is, if you're there in the water, because I was coached
03:45 by some of the top coaches in the UK and they're just watching you and it's like 'they're
03:51 watching me' and you just say one thing, work on that, come off the water and next
03:57 thing and you come off feeling you're going a little bit faster than when you went on
04:01 the water.
04:02 And it's such a team sport as well, isn't it? So how do you get a group that maybe didn't
04:06 know each other before to really get into that synchronised style of rowing together?
04:11 Yes, that's really important. We'll have a lot of people coming on Saturday, which
04:15 is great, they're all really welcome, all ages, abilities, well actually not all ages,
04:18 over the age of 15 that is. And you'll get different rowing styles, so a coach's job
04:23 is really to say 'ok, well this person's going back a bit too quick, so it's getting
04:26 all together'. But yes, that film, we were sitting in that film together thinking 'do
04:30 you know what, I think we should do this' and then everything just happened, it's
04:36 really good. It's a real good story because the club really needs some help. I think it
04:41 takes a community to win a gold medal, it's not just a team, it's a whole thing, it's
04:45 parents, it's coaches, it's people, every single cup of tea that's made at that club
04:49 is going towards that medal.
04:51 That's great and that's the plan, isn't it? You want to take this group to Henley
04:54 and actually this group's been around for years, this club, they actually won it before
04:59 in 1893, so is that the kind of plan to go back to history?
05:03 They didn't win it, they lost in the final in a White Falls Challenge Cup.
05:07 Of course, yes, no but they got it.
05:09 So we're thinking, it's kind of weird actually because we were in the club and it's got
05:12 these old silver pots and things and you think 'god, it's got like 1860s', it's
05:16 a really, Chatham, this Medway's got a real history of rowing and we've got to revive
05:23 this, so we're out to do something quite special but we're being quite modest about
05:28 it I think because if you start to say 'oh yeah, we're going to win Henley' because
05:31 it's a very, very difficult event to win. It's like the Wimbledon of tennis, it's
05:35 very difficult.
05:36 Now of course, so what does the club look like at the moment? I know you've got 40
05:40 boats down there.
05:41 We've got 40 boats but the club obviously needs some money. What is really sad is that
05:50 when we were talking about this last night, when we go to Henley, the schools that are
05:54 winning, Eton, Bradley, Heddington, they've got money but you don't see any schools,
06:01 or at least very few schools from this part of the country that are in the national schools,
06:06 regattas or winning Henley and I think that's really sad and I think they need to have some
06:10 investment. Whoever is the MP around here, they've got to do a better job than this
06:14 because there's no money going into sport around Medway, they've got to sort it out.
06:18 George, you're a youngster as part of this, do you think this is something that people
06:22 maybe leaving school around that age should be looking into?
06:26 Definitely, I think we used to have Kent University come down, it's really suitable for those
06:32 ages and you make great friends doing it.
06:36 Make great friends, that's the hope. Thank you both for joining us very much and all
06:41 the best with the future of this group.
06:43 Thanks for having us, it's been a pleasure.