HEAD OF THE RIVER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 114, 17 May 1933, Page 14

HEAD OF THE RIVER.

SYDNEY'S BOAT RACE. ST. JOSEPH'S WIN AGAIN. ENORMOUS «GALLERY." (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 12. The famous regatta at which Sydney'e public schools fight for victory on the Parramatta has come and gone with at least all its customary tumultuoue enthusiasm. This year the weather wae not so obliging as last year, for thceky was overcast, a?i<l the air was a little cold, though there was no wind to interfere with the rower*. But nothing could depress the spectators, who came in their scores of thousands to cheer and to "barrack" in approved fashion for their favourite school. As usual, everybody from judicial and legal and clerical dignitaries down to newspaper boys, and from dignified "grandee dames" to juvenile "flappers," wore school ribbons—-many of them gigantic streamers —and most people ha<l provided themselves with gaily adorned megaphones to add to the universal din. The amount of noise that a hundred thousand people or more can make under such conditions must be heard to be believed; and quite apart from the allpervading hysteria of excitement, the racing, and more especially the struggle in the eights contest, was enough in itself to work the onlookers up to a high pitch of enthusiasm. / Beaten in Last 20 Yards. The big race was one- of the finest contests of tho sort that I have ever witnessed, and it lias been set down by experienced judges as one of the finest ever rowed in Australia. For "Shore" ("North Shore Church of England Grammar School" is its correct title), though the lighter crew, rowing magnificently, led St. Joseph's, the holders, by nearly half a length till about 100 yards from home. Even up to the last 20 yards it looked like a dead-heat, but the superior weight and strength of the "Joeys" and the sound judgment of their famous stroke, Elias, brought their boat across the line a few feet ahead of their opponents. Both crews rowed splendidly, and there was not a suspicion of_ faltering or "raggedness" to the end —in fact, from tho rowing standpoint it was '"a first-class show." But even more impressive was the huge concourse of spectators and their wholehearted participation in the struggle. The scene as the two leading boats entered the long lane between the rows of launches and ferries that flanked the last half-mile of the couree was the sort of thing that leaves a permanent impression upon one's mind and imagination; and I was not surprised when "old sports" who have seen many an Oxford and Cambridge boat race wrote to the papers next day to testify their conviction that the 6cene on the Parramatta last Saturday surpassed anything that had come within the range of their experience before. Such spectacles are- difficult to describe adequately, without a wealth of detail that takes no account of the limitations of journalistic space; Mr. Lan Jdriese, who specialises in vivid description, got the regatta as an "assignment" from one of our newspapers, but he -was not much more successful with his task than' the average amateur. Indeed, his most strongly marked recollection of tho race was a little irrelevant —ho was kissed enthusiastically by a pretty girl, who in the excitement of victory mistook him for an adjacent "best boy." However, Mr. Idriess has publicly announced his intention of "seeing it again next year," and even without the personal inducement that he received the vast majority of the spectators arc eure to follow his example.