Welcome to Rob Roy Juniors

Building the Best!

Rob’s Juniors are the most successful junior squad in Cambridge.

Of its 50 strong squad, 30 race competitively and are not only picking up medals from key regional races, but are receiving medals and awards at the British Championships each year, and in increasing numbers.

Part of the secret of Rob’s success in its junior crews lies with the junior outreach programme, ‘Try Rowing’ which emphasises its town based origins. For more on our junior’s outreach programme, please see our page on Try Rowing.

The Rob Roy BC Junior Squad is very grateful to Thomas David Accountants of Hertford  for a donation which has enabled us to buy a new CoxOrb (in Rob Roy maroon!) for our junior coxed quads. 

Our Ethos and our Team Spirit

Rowing brings individuals together where, over time and after many training sessions,  the joint strength and spirit of the boat becomes more important than its individual rowers. In this way, rowing is a sport that cuts across boundaries and differences. Each rower must submit to the greater goal of the boat, or the crew will not gel and the boat will not pull well.

As a rower and as a member of Rob’s Juniors, you are measured on your performance in the water, not on where you come from or which school you go to. If you make your best effort and work hard, you will be included. Rowing is about perseverance and about not giving up. It’s about being a team member and supporting the team through failure and success.

Our Objectives

Rob’s Juniors key objectives are to build on our young success and to foster some of the best junior rowing crews in Great Britain. To do this we aim to (i) encourage new talented rowers through our outreach programme Try Rowing; (ii) enter crews for regional and national regattas including the Junior National Championships and come home with medals; and (iii) enter crews for the Henley Regatta.

By the time our juniors ‘graduate’ they will know how to scull, row, cox, and coach.

Underpinning our objectives is our intention to develop our juniors as committed athletes who enjoy challenging themselves.

We aim to instil in them the value of sportsmanship and a love of rowing which will take them through long successful rowing careers at whatever level they choose.

 

Our Crews

We have three level of rowing crews at Rob’s Juniors: the Performance Squad, the Racing Squad and the Development Squad.  The sorts of young people who join Rob’s Juniors are those who like a physical challenge and those who like to win. For more information on any of our squads, please get in touch via email at juniors@robroyboatclub.org.uk.

Join us

We are interested in juniors who have never rowed before and those who have. We are interested in those who have a good sporting background and feel they have potential in a boat, perhaps due to their physical strength or height. If you are a junior interested in joining or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email our Director of Junior Rowing, Jo Burch at  juniors@robroyboatclub.org.uk.

Rob Roy BC junior women make history at Henley Royal Regatta

A Rob Roy BC junior girls’ quad made history racing at Henley Royal Regatta 2022 in the first round of the Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup. This was the first time a junior crew from the Club has raced at Henley, the most prestigious club regatta in the world.
Even more impressive is that all four girls in the crew come from local state schools and only took up rowing because of the Try Rowing schools outreach programme provided by Rob Roy Boat Club.

 

The crew was:

Grace Church and Abigail Jackson of Parkside School

Eloise Cotrel and Prune Lestienne of Chesterton School

Prune had jumped into the crew at the last minute replacing Lily Martin of Parkside, who was ill with covid. (Lily, devastated at missing out, also started her rowing career at Try Rowing, where she had insisted on taking part in the gym selection tests, even with a broken arm).

Although the crew just lost their race against Bedford Modern School, the commentators praised their determination and rhythm, set up by stroke girl, Grace Church: ‘Quad sculling at Henley at its finest’ was their comment.

Director of Junior Rowing at Rob Roy, Jo Burch was at home with covid, watching the live stream at her desk: 

“We are all so proud of the girls racing heroically in dreadful conditions. I was in floods of tears at the end of the race! We saw the raw talent in these girls aged 13, when they took part in our Try Rowing outreach project a couple of years ago, and have watched them mature into outstanding oarswomen. They are role models for the rest of the squad not only in their sculling ability but in their determination and commitment to their training, to their schoolwork (they have all had A levels or GCSEs this year), and to the teamwork which is needed to make a squad like ours so successful – they have even put in the time to coach the next generation of pupils at this year’s Try Rowing project!”