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In 1974 three past pupils of King Edwards VII School, Graham Shearer, Tom Price and Trevor Steyn, set about raising funds to get the Old Edwardian Boat Club off of its feet. Trevor Steyn was the school's first team coach and Tom had been rowing master of the school for some time. These three set about identifying potential contributors and in 1974 ten founder members of the Old Edwardian Boat Club all donated R100 each to the purchase of a second hand coxless-four and oars from the defunct Kroonstad Rowing Club. This four aptly named 'Founder', was still part of the club until recently when it was donated to South African development rowing.
Affiliation to the Old Edwardian Society followed in 1978. Although originally intended as a means for old KES school boys to continue rowing after school, Old Eds soon became popular with oarsmen from elsewhere, and today is as cosmopolitan as any other senior club.
During the 1990's the club became seriously competitive within South African rowing and has moved from strength to strength culminating with winning the trophy for best club at the 1999, 2000 & 2001 South African Championships. The club has had enormous success in domestic rowing with crews rarely finishing out of the medals in local Regatta's.
Since South Africa's readmission to the international sports arena before the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, the Old Eds Boat Club has been one of the countries top providers of international oarsmen for the World Cup, World Championships and Olympic Games. In the nine years since readmission the club has had over 30 individuals represent South Africa, some of them repeatedly winning their international colors. During the 1999 season all eight oarsmen from the Old Eds A Eight were selected to represent South Africa in various boat classes at the Rowing World Cup in Belgium. In 2000, 8 club members represented South Africa at the African Champs and 3 members were part of the 2000 Sydney Olympics Rowing Team. In 2001, 7 members rowed at the World Championships with the most impressive performance coming from Donovan Cech and Ramon DiClemente in the Men's pair, winning a bronze medal. |
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We currently have a very strong Men's Senior A section and a small but very eager to grow ladies section.
Our Senior B section has the aim of developing young rowers into athletes of international standard.
The Senior C and D group is the clubs social and novice section. This group varies in size throughout the season with some people crawling out the woodwork for the annual SA Championships! The group consists mainly of oarsmen who can't commit to the time necessary for Senior A rowing but wish to continue with the sport they love. Occasionally a novice will start rowing and proceed into the B Squad and sometimes all the way to full international standard.
The majority of crews train at Roodeplaat Dam, Pretoria with some training taking place at Wemmer Pan, Johannesburg. Training commitments depend on the level of competitiveness, varying from a few times a year to a few times a day.
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