The Boat Race- oh how lovely.

 The Boat Race- oh how lovely.

After a year of restrictions and deprivations, limitations and reductions, the light at the end of the tunnel can finally be seen. We are moving away from depression, pessimism, statistical analyses, agonising, soul destroying cynicism and finally nearing the end of Covid 19. Surely we can see it from here, glinting refulgently on car bonnets, bus tops, the gabled roofs of terraced, semi-detached homes, flats and council estates. The shops were once plunged into a horrific state of lamentation and an indefinite state of anxiety while all around us the ducks, swans and geese in those pure, salubrious parks have been lonely and reflective, wondering what on earth has happened to the human race. But everything is looking upwards and this is all heading onwards and forwards. 

Today though, that great British cultural and national treasure The Boat Race is back on the sporting calendar after a year of absence making the heart grow fonder. Last year all of us were dumbstruck at the sudden disappearance of one of Britain's most traditional, middle class, elitist sporting occasions. We didn't know it at the time but the Boat Race was at first postponed then cancelled when the realisation dawned on us that what seemed a medical nuisance known as the coronavirus had rendered the race null and void. It's not happening guys so you'd better get used to the idea. The virus then got serious and for just over a year we've been hopping and jumping out of each other's way, terrified at first, then totally at a loss as to what the future may have held for us as a species. Still, we've done it.  

The Boat Race has been restored to the cultural calendar of our lives, etched indelibly into our consciousness and how we've missed those riverside antics, those eminent and formidable universities battling out for supremacy on dear old Father Thames. What we'd have given for those he men, macho and fearless students of Oxford and Cambridge going oar to oar through Hammersmith and then Putney before taking a short cut to the nearest boozer, an alcoholic establishment we could all do with at the moment. 

Year after year the undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge have re-enacted all of those familiar mannerisms and theatrics, those nerve shredding dramatics and, occasionally, lovable eccentricities. They'll be heaving with red faces, pulling, pushing, gritting their teeth, growling and groaning, willing each other to the bitter end without ever losing sight of that very personal quest; to thrash the living daylights out of each other in a University Boat Race where the bragging rights become the central theme of the day. 

Sadly though the River Thames will not be the location for this year's Boat Race because we're not quite out of the woods yet. It does seem a crying shame that the good residents of Hammersmith and Putney will not be experiencing the delights of two sets of normally very well behaved and equable gentlemen who just want to slump back in their winning boat and slap each other on the back effusively by way of congratulation. 

This year the Boat Race will be held in Cambridge which, by any other definition, sounds totally unfair. There is a travesty of justice here and that all pervasive sense of home advantage for Cambridge. Of course Cambridge is one of the most beautiful cities in Britain and there should be no denying them the right to hold the race on their own territory. Surely though Cambridge must hold the upper hand and yet maybe not. This is the Boat Race after all and anything can happen. 

Still, the yearly Boat Race battle royale will go ahead after all and not before time as some would say. They'll be busting a gut to the finishing line, arms and elbows digging their oars commendably into the foaming water of Ely, faces twisted with superhuman effort, utterly committed and driven, cheeks flushed and exhausted, sweat pouring heroically from a throbbing forehead, pain engraved on saturated eye lashes. 

In years gone by the BBC's flagship Saturday sports fiesta Grandstand would invariably be handed over to Harry Carpenter, that admirably impartial and composed boxing commentator. Carpenter would stand by the riverside, smiling at the privilege that had been bestowed on him and introducing us to the scenic charms of the Tower of London, Big Ben and the House of Commons in the distance.

Then either Oxford or Cambridge would set off in the confident belief that either would just win by  country miles or the length of the River Thames. At some point during the race the cameras in the sky would show one of the crews either on its own or waving the white flag of surrender since there was no point in trying to catch the other. And so a white puff of resignation would go up, the nation would acclaim a university powerhouse their victory, a university so athletically superior that it's hard to believe that anybody would dare question their academic and sporting superiority. 

Some of us though have always been bemused at the participants in this thrilling rowing boat spectacle. Why do they always choose the same two universities every year for a race that could have been regarded as an afterthought under the current circumstances? What harm have Britain's other highly distinguished universities done to deserve this glaring omission. Are they any less capable of rowing along a river where the sparkling sunshine of early spring lends it a much shinier sheen and lustre?

What we do have though this afternoon is the Boat Race, a yearly riverside treat that restores our faith in a sport that at no point would receive the nationwide publicity that it so rightly deserves. True, the Olympics, rescheduled to Tokyo later on this year, will once again be hosting its esteemed coxes and crews, those natural successors to the incomparable Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. 

Meanwhile and hopefully during the summer drowsiness of it all, the Henley Regatta will be leisurely and lazily languishing in bottles of champagne, trays weighed down with considerable numbers of canapes and vol au vents and smoked salmon on silver platters by the hundred. It will be England re-discovering its cultural reference point, its common courtesies, its impeccable manners and its polished dress sense, the comfortable boater hat, its well ironed shirt and natty bow tie. 

But first things first. It's the Boat Race, our first glimpse at the one of the social event of the year we must have thought had been forgotten about. Soon the Tokyo Olympics will be upon us and the rowers of Great Britain can show their true colours. Oh how good it is that one of our favourite sporting certainties is now set in stone. Yippee!