Noel Casey – ARA Medal of Honour

9th April 2008

On 2nd March Vesta RC hosted a special award ceremony in honour of Noel Casey at Vesta Rowing Club. He was awarded both a prestigious ARA Medal of Honour by Di Ellis, Chairman of the ARA (following a joint nomination from Thames RC and Vesta RC), and as a special award for Noel’s services to rowing in the Region, some engraved whiskey glasses by Martin Humphrys, Chairman of the Thames Regional Rowing Council.

We were all delighted to see Noel officially recognized for his long service to the rowing community, as a rower and especially as a coach. Many of his friends and rowers he has coached attended to share in the celebration, testimony to the respect, admiration and gratitude Noel has earned over the years.

Noel came to London from Sneem, in County Kerry, Ireland before he turned 20. He rowed for Vesta in the 1960s and was part of a very successful coxless four that cleaned up at the local regatta circuit and reached the semi-final of the Wyfolds in 1969. As a young man he was a builder and incredibly strong. He remembers racing up the scaffolding as part of his training routine, and, for the craic, sometimes arms only; and there were no hard hats in those days.

However, it is as a coach that Noel found greatest success. He began coaching women’s crews, starting with his two daughters, Bernie and Caroline, who had success at national and international level, as Noel says “Not bad for two littl’ns”. They won Nat Champs in a women's coxed four in 1981 and became the first Thames women's crew to compete in the World Championships, finishing seventh at Munich. Thames RC was one of the few clubs in the 1970s and 80s supporting a women’s squad and Noel developed a dominant team there. He coached the Great Britain women’s eight to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where they came an agonizing 4th in a blanket finish, the best ever performance by a GB women’s eight in the Olympics to date.

Back at club level in the years 1985 and 86 Noel took on coaching the Vesta men, who, one imagines, were a fairly hard crowd to subdue. He succeeded in pushing them hard though; they did well, winning the Vernon Harcourt Trophy in the HORR in 1986 for the fastest Tideway crew.

Noel returned to coaching women in the years 1987 to 1990 and built a highly competitive group of rowers at Thames who were to challenge the GB selected eight at the first ever Henley Women’s Regatta in 1987. The GB eight beat Thames, but only just, both at Henley and Nat Champs, which frightened the selectors enough to stop the GB eight from going to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, but not enough to allow a re-selection (or ask Noel to coach). The following year at Nat Champs Thames women won the eight, four, pair and came second in the double.

In 1990 Noel coached four of his crew to GB selection and in 1990 the TRC eight beat the squad eight rowing as Tideway Scullers at the WEHORR. Two of his rowers, Miriam and Guin Batten, progressed to be World Champions and Olympic silver medalists at Sydney 2000 in quadruple sculls, the first British women to win an Olympic rowing medal.

Noel was once asked why he coached women and he answered that they did as they were told and you could push them a lot harder than most people thought (and harder than most men). He returned to coaching women with Vesta in 2003 where he turned a bunch of unlikely candidates into Henley winners once more, achieving Vesta women’s first HWR medal. He is a demanding coach who believes in training very hard, especially “more weights”. He loves competitive crews training side by side to Richmond and back and doesn’t stand for laziness. “Row as hard as you can for twenty strokes… Good… Now keep rowing like that.”

In 2005 Noel returned to Sneem, but rowing retirement clearly doesn’t exist because it didn’t take long for him to start coaching the women at Muckross House RC. By 2007 they had won the Irish National Championships in a four and doubled up with Neptune to win in the eight – a sweet victory for those wishing to knock UCD off their pedestal. This year he is coaching the juniors and we are waiting in anticipation to see if they sweep the board at Wallingford in a few weeks’ time.

One of his rowers at his award ceremony said he “worked a kind of magic” because, although he put his crews through an awful amount of pain, hard work and tiredness, every one of them would try their hardest to please him and make him proud. He pushed his athletes hard but was also very approachable and he cared deeply and emotionally for his “girls”. He got very cross when we didn’t perform or didn’t do as he asked. A few swear words there! Most of all he understands what it takes to win and has made this a realistic possibility for many rowers.

Miriam Luke (nee Batten) credits Noel with coaching her to be the rower and sculler that she became. “I had the joy of experiencing great success but Noel started that dream for me and showed me the first steps of how to get there.”

It is wonderful to be able to thank and give tribute to Noel through these awards. Well done and thank you Noel!

Cheryl Gilliver, VRC Women's VIII 2004 & 2005.