Issue 95 - February 1997

Raising the Roof

Fred Smallbone sits on a stool at the window of the Blue Anchor in Hammersmith, looking out on the sweep of the tideway where he became an Olympian in Bob Janousek's eight back in the seventies.

'The London region of the Sports Council came along in October 1986 and asked us to get a regatta going in the docks,' he says. 'Now there's three regattas on the Albert Dock. Docklands gets around 750 entries over the two days, Poplar gets over 500 and has become a big youth regatta, and the Met's a growing success there as well. The Royal Albert Dock Trust has now issued 32 permits to clubs to use the Dock.'

'I tell you, if you go down there in May there's crews all over it. As far as I'm concerned, it's the dog's bollocks.'

Smallbone is a Lea boy, starting rowing at Crowland when he was nine. He moved west to Tradesmen when he was a printing apprentice to join Jim Clark, Lenny Robertson and Bill Mason in a junior crew who became rowing's Fab Four. They had long hair, sharp wits, no money, and a coach in Jim Railton who had no experience of rowing, and they made it swiftly to the top, winning junior and Henley medals before all rowing in Bob Janousek's silver world eight in 1974 and all but Mason in the silver Olympic eight of 1976. Of the four, Clark has now taken a back seat after several years coaching the Italian and Danish national squads. But Mason is in charge at Imperial, Robertson at Notts County, and Smallbone, besides doing a stint as chairman of the ARA's National Coaching Committee, marshalled the forces of the club of which he is now president, Thames Tradesmen, to create the Royal Albert Dock Trust and place it in partnership with the Sports Council, the London Borough of Newham and the London Docks Development Board.

He persevered in the face of unbelievers and bureaucrats. He and his team staged events, attracted dragon boats and canoes to use the water as well as rowers, and consistently accounted for their actions and spending to the bodies who controlled the dock and gave them money. Key people have been Fred Badowski of Thames Tradesmen who became the full-time administrator when the trust was formed in 1992, and Smallbone's wife Nicola, nicknamed 'Mrs Properly Woman' for her meticulous keeping of accounts.

It was not all plain sailing, but the Trust persisted through the changing climate of boom and bust in Docklands development planning. During one rough period a big cheese in the LDDC asked Fred why he didn't throw in the towel.

'Because I'm half a length down,'

'If you were an Olympic oarsman you'd understand that I won't quit 'til I'm ahead.'

Smallbone is certainly ahead now. The LDDC and English Partnerships, the eventual successor to the LDDC, are to spend £7.2 million on a new bridge which will enable the removal of an old swing bridge and the consequent lengthening of the 7-lane dock into the Royal Albert Basin to provide 2000 metres. A Sports Council grant of £8.9 million will pay for a magnificent residential club facility and a boathouse which will take 90 eights. Yes, that's right, 90 eights.

'What I want to do is expand rowing in East London by improved access to safe water. We want to introduce new people to rowing. What we don't want to do is detract from local clubs. The existing clubs - Lea, Poplar, Grosvenor, Curlew - need to prosper. We want to give London clubs a nursery for future members and flat water to row on in the winter, with good facilities and boat storage.'

'So that when London applies for the Olympics, this is one thing the IOC can tick off on their list,'

'What we have done already is introduced a scheme for local schools in Becton to bring kids down and introduce them to rowing, We've got some tub pairs, ergs and instructors, all Sportsmatched by Texaco.'

The watchword for the buildings design by Ian Ritchie Architects is environmental friendliness and a high standard of build.

'Spending to get this right now will be more economical in the long run,'

Back in the telling, we have moved from the Blue Anchor to the Coni room of the ARA, where the late chairman, once a coach at Tradesmen and a leading light in the now-Docklands based Metropolitan Regatta, looks down at us from the wall. Fred flicks through the plans with relish lighting up his visage. Docklands 2000 is going to be the dog's bollocks.

© Copyright Christopher Dodd, 1997.