About the race 

History of the race

In the 1960s, John Newman, an oarsmen in the Scout's Boat Cub, proposed a new event that would be a timed race held on three Sundays in the early part of the year, to be called the Winter League. The first two races were held in January and February and took place over the traditional course from the A14 bridge (not then built) to the top finish on Stourbridge common, a distance of 2,600m. The final race in March was raced over a longer course from the A14 bridge to the City of Cambridge Boathouse, a distance of 4,300m.

Chris Lloyd of the Free Press Boat Club, and then latterly Chris Saul of City of Cambridge Rowing Club took on responsibility for running the event in the 1980s. In the report for 1987, the organising committee stated:

"Despite the severest winter for many years, the 1987 C.R.A Winter League attracted one of the highest entries ever. The first race had to be rescheduled when the river was completely frozen. When actually run, a shortened course was used for the first time from the railway bridge to the Combined Boathouse since the river was rapidly freezing below the bridge."

The weather is never actually that bad though; there have only been two legs cancelled for poor conditions since 2003 (in March 2020 and March 2022), although the course was shortened in March 2023 and February 2024 due to a high water level.

Claire Berryman (City), Bill Key, Chris Lloyd (Free Press and X-Press), Martin Green (X-Press) and Jess Upton shared responsibility for many years and all relied very much on members of their clubs to help out on the day. Bill has many memories of people rummaging around in his garage on dark cold nights, getting the event gear ready!

You can read more about the Winter League in Bill's book 'Eyes in the boat'.  Let us know if you have any old photos of the race which we can archive here.