Agecroft Rowing Club

Agecroft Rowing Club is an amateur rowing club which operates from Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, England.
History
There has been rowing in Manchester and Salford since 1823, with more than 15 clubs operating during the 1860s. Agecroft R.C. was formed by the gradual merging of these River Irwell-based clubs. Agecroft R.C. was established in Oct 1861 by Ishmael Lythgoe with its first boat house in the grounds of Agecroft Hall at its original location before it was sold and rebuilt by the James River in Virginia, USA. The club soon moved to the River Irwell further upstream at Littleton Road and were based there for over a hundred years. However, in early 2000s, the river became unrowable and the site of the boathouse was part of the new flood plain - this forced a move to a new boathouse at Salford Quays. This new home triggered a huge growth in club size and successes throughout the UK.
Current activities
The club regularly competes across the UK at all levels and has a broad membership base, from complete novices and juniors through to semi-professional athletes competing at international level. The club regularly hosts a small boats head race in the winter and supports two British Rowing world class start coaches.
The club hosts a wide variety of rowers of different abilities, ambitions and ages, with a large membership and a wide variety of members from juniors through students to veterans. The club has achieved high standards in recent years at Henley Royal Regatta and course record winners at Henley Women's Regatta in the Intermediate 4+ event. At HRR, under the coaching of Club Captain, Denis O'Neill, the club, in successive years lost a semi final by one foot, then a Final, then a semifinal, but culminating in a historic first ever Henley win in The Britannia (Liz O'Neill/Craig Morgan/Pete Warman, Tom Dawson, stroke Ben Sullivan) in 2009. The success continued after this win with Brendan Crean reaching the semis of the Diamonds in 2010, a World Class Start 4x also reaching the Prince of Wales 2011 semi and then Graeme Thomas losing the FInal of the Diamonds in 2012.
The club has also been successful in the World Class Start squad with wins in the World Under 23s coxless pairs and a Home Countries win for England in the single sculls by Olivia Whitlam who has since gone on to represent GB at Beijing Olympics and Eton Olympics 9 and 3 World Championships in between). Other recent internationalists include Brendan Crean (4x 2010), Graeme Thomas (World Cup win Australia 2013), Zak Lee-Green (lwt 4x u23 bronze 2010), Oli Lee (U23 4x 2010), Rebecca Chin (U23 W8 Bronze, 2012) and Olivia Oakes(U23 W8 bronze 2012). Both Brendan (England) and Graeme (Wales) have also won National Championship gold medals in 1x and Home Countries Internationals.
Daniele Gilardoni (Italian 11 times World Gold medallist in lwt 4x and ranked as World's most successful oarsmen at the Worlds) joined Agecroft in February 2013 and has rowed and coached there since.
Juniors
The junior section of Agecroft is new but growing rapidly and now has over 60 members. The biggest event they have participated in is the National Scullers Head which was on Dorney Lake where they entered junior coxless quad consisting of all under 18s.
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