A WYE rowing club has marked its 90th anniversary with a scratch regatta, boat naming and BBQ.

Monmouth Rowing Club’s longest serving member, John Jenkins, who has been a rower and coach on the river for 60 years, paid tribute to some its key figures before two of his junior squad cut a special celebration cake bearing the club badge.

"There are many who have made the club what it is, but some of those from times past deserve a special mention," he said.

"Such as Fred Pyner, a founder member, who ran the club Tote to help fund this fantastic boat club we have and lived to be 100 when he was still a member.

"And John Hartland, who was a driving force behind the building of the clubhouse that replaced our old warehouse shed in 1969, and the expansion of the boathouse in the 1990s to include a gym and downstairs changing areas.

"And we’re indebted to late club president Alec Woods, a veteran of the Battle of Arnhem exactly 75 years ago.

"Alec was one of the first on the bridge and after being captured by the Germans he escaped twice from prisoner of war camps.

"It is because of these and others who I haven’t mentioned that we have this fantastic boathouse and club today, and we owe them an awful lot."

Rowers who have raced for Monmouth RC include GB internationals and world medalists Jim Hartland, Mark Partridge, Jeremy Edwards and Robin Williams, coach of the GB Olympic champion women’s pair, while in recent times its veteran rowers have made waves at top masters events, winning British and world medals, including in Hungary last month, where Alex Butler, Mark Stewart-Woods and Ben Rodford won B and C pairs between them.

Some fun scratch racing saw four eights of rowers picked from the hat race head-to-head over 500m to the club balcony, with one of the heats seeing a four-foot verdict, while the final was also close with a verdict of a canvas.

Two crews of young junior scullers also raced in quads, with just a length splitting them.

Afterwards, three club boats were officially named. Long-serving club member and rower Gail Adams poured champagne over a double named after her, while Patricia Carswell wetted the bows of a boat named after her award-winning rowing blog ’Girl on the River’.

Two of the juniors, Izzy Whittington and Sienna Powell, also did the honours on a double scull named ’Double Trouble’.

For pictures of the 90th birthday celebration, see Monmouth Rowing Club’s Facebook page and for more information, go to www.monmouthrc.org.uk