The Boat Race

Phil Evans

Surely the most peculiar event on the English sporting calendar is the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race.

Never referred to as the "Cambridge and Oxford" boat race, it involves 8 muscular, fully grown young men, seated in a narrow flimsy looking boat facing backwards.

They endeavour to manipulate 8 long poles through the water in such a manner that their boat moves faster than another boat, full of equally large young men, who are carrying out an identical exercise!

Both these "8s" are steered by a diminutive figure seated at the rear end of their boats. These little people, being the only ones who know where they are going, yell instructions at the big people, and try to out-manoeuvre the opposing boat without sinking it.

The participants representing the two major English universities are mainly foreigners

As this bizarre sight splashes its way up the River Thames, it is closely followed by an armada of little motor boats, led by a gentleman wearing a schoolboy cap and wielding a large megaphone.

The winning team is the first to pass a man on the river-side frantically waving a flag. They immediately start cheering and hugging each other, while their opponents slump over as if dead.

Finally, the winners gently row back to their boathouse, embrace the little person who has been shouting at them and throw him in the river.