The Faulty Flipper – Kirklees Masters’ Newsletter
24 February 1992 Edition 20
Sunderland ’92
Sunderland proved a much better experience this year, with provisions supplied and much more bum space. The races were well organised, and just enough time was given over to the ceremonials.
Jim came along again and must almost have been pleased with the swimming his team (sorry squad) put in. Whatever else, it is Jim who turns up every night without fail, and inspires, in his own inimitable way, us all to more and more pain. He was also right in predicting several improvements in times. The times in curly brackets are some comparisons with times from the same event last year.
Once again, SR means a squad record, and the figure after a PB is the improvement.
Individually, we had 20 swimmers having 61 swims. From these there were 22 PBs, 6 Squad Records, and 8 Gold, 7 Silver and 10 Bronze medals. We managed two clean sweeps, in the men’s fifty free ‘B’ group, and men’s back-stroke ‘C’ group. In the relay teams, we had five teams who managed 2 gold and three bronze medals, and 2 squad records.
Susan Holmes B
50m Back 44.42s PB (.78s)
50m Free 35.53s SR PB (2.31s)
Sue had a very good day out. Unbelievably she missed out on the prize (non-existent, by the way Pop) for the biggest improvement in time.
Carol Todd B
50m Free 36.44s
50m Breast 42.10s 6 {42.46}
Wendy Offord C
50m Fly 38.47s S SR
50m Back 38.22s G
50m Free 33.13s G {34.16}
We all gazed in wonder at Wendy’s fly swim. Could this be – Wendy? Yes, and in all her glory.
Dianne Hepworth B
50m Breast 46.10s PB (2.32s)
Trish Mellor D
50m Back 39.34s S
50m Free 36.58s 5
50m Breast 44.72s 5 {45.38s}
Christine Parton D
50m Fly 41.80s B
50m Back 47.89s
50m Free 36.69s 6
50m Breast 44.25s 4
There seems to be a very decorous tussle going on between Christine and Trish. Far be it from me to suggest who is winning.
Paul Oldham A
50m Free 27.37s B PB (.27s)
50m Fly 30.60s 4 PB (.66s)
50m Back 33.45s S PB (1.27s)
You cannot ask for more.
Clive Thornton A
50m Free 31.51s PB (.19s)
50m Breast 43.09s PB (1.24s)
Simon Garside B
50m Free 25.75s G PB=
50m Fly 28.55s G
50m Back 30.59s G
People have been known to smile at the competition between myself and John Chaplin. It is as nothing to that between Hopalong Garside and Pop. The 50m free was evidence enough for anyone, with David pushing Simon all the way down the lane rope to a PB.
Kevan Brown B
50m Free 28.97s {29.19}
50m Breast 36.31s 5
50m Fly 32.88s {33.40}
David Larkins B
50m Free 25.93s S PB (.36s) {26.78}
50m Breast 33.61s G PB (2.43s)
50m Fly 31.93s PB (1.16s)
50m Back 34.41s 5 PB (.30s)
Sunderland must be Pop’s favourite place. The swims in the Free and Breast were particularly spectacular, going under 26s for the first time. One sad result of David’s spectacular improvement in the Breast stroke, is that he should not now see him powering home in the free-style leg of the medley. After Simon, he is next choice for the breast stroke!
Tony Fawthrop B
50m Free 27.20s B PB (.02s)
50m Breast – disqualified
50m Fly 31.62s
50m Back 32.97s 4 PB (.10s)
Tony will be turning thirty this year, and so has moved up an age group. I think he was unhappy at the disqualification – for a dirty dolphin kick out of the turn.
Brian Godfrey C
50m Free 27.37s S PB (.26s)
50m Fly 30.23s G SR PB (.58s)
50m Back 30.09s S
Is this man real? Is he made of iron? Will he rust away? Sadly he got a silver after Graham in the back-stroke, but with the same time. He is even threatening to learn breast-stroke.
Alistair Russell C
50m Free 28.91s 4
50m Breast 37.32 S SR PB (.85s)
50m Fly 32.88s 5
50m Back 36.56s 6
Stephen Hepworth C
50m Free 29.10s PB=
50m Breast 39.78s 4
50m Fly 34.11s {34.74}
50m Back 34.22s B {34.41}
Michael Gibbins C
50m Free 29.34s PB (.82)
50m Breast 37.41s B
50m Fly 33.46s PB (.13s)
Trevor Thewlis C
50m Free 29.35s
50m Fly 31.31s B
50m Back 35.35s 4
Trevor has just moved up an age group, his tonsorial arrangements have prepared him for some time, and the bronze medal was some compensation.
Graham Hodgson C
50m Free 29.37s
50m Fly 32.25s 4
50m Back 33.09s G
Graham was given the Gold in front of Brian for the back-stroke, but they finished with the same time.
John Chaplin D
50m Free 31.86s B
50m Breast 39.18s B SR PB (.12s)
50m Back 42.59s 4
Old TSB just seems to get better and better at the breast stroke.
David Swarbrick D
50m Free 32.36s 5 {33.22}
50m Breast 43.04s {49.29}
50m Fly 36.80s B {38.69}
50m Back 41.25s B SR PB (1.51s)
My day started OK. I had several excuses lined up, even Jim was beginning to look convinced. Then, my daughter Merry (not Mary), told me off. Her simple refusal to understand how I could not swim faster eventually worked – a bit, and I came back with more medals than I had expected, and pinched back a squad record from John in the process.
Relay Teams
Men’s 160+
Making the team is much easier this year. This time out we had Graham Hodgson, Mike Gibbins, John Chaplin, and David S.
Free-style 55.06s 4 Squad Record {58.40s}
Medley 61.25s B Squad Record Graham Hodgson, John Chaplin, Mike Gibbins, David Swarbrick {68.37s}
Mens 120+ Medley
A 55.00s Gold Brian Godfrey, Tony Fawthrop, Simon and David Larkins. {58.17s}
B 57.15s Bronze
C 1.01.14 5
Despite their spectacular and continuing success, the A team is still swimming below their fastest if assessed just simply on 50m PBs.
Free-Style
A 48.21s Gold Simon, Tony, Brian, David {51.50s}
B 50.90s 4
C 52.82s 5
Womens 120+++
Medley:- 1m 10.25s Wendy, Christine, Sue Holmes, and Trish Mellor (I am sorry, I don’t know who swam what), came in a creditable fifth.
Free style:- 1m 3.84s – unknown
Rankings
This time we finish off the rankings for 100m with IM and then include all the 200m rankings. All rankings are short course as at 5 February, 1992.
IM 25m 100
64.86s Simon Garside
68.09s Andrew P Simpson
69.99s Christopher Short
70.16s Anthony Fawthrop
70.16s David Manning
72.05s David Larkins
73.94s Stephen Hepworth
74.03s Kevan S Brown
75.59s Alistair Russell
76.41s Suzanne Linton
76.53s Brian Godfrey
76.55s Anthony Ruddiman
78.33s Victoria Linton
78.80s Michael Gibbins
81.57s Yvonne Brodie-Brown
85.43s Brent Turner
85.52s David Swarbrick
85.54s John Chaplin
86.03s Trish Mellor
86.74s Wendy Offord
88.78s Carol Todd
91.22s Christine Parton
92.26s Barry Summers
Back 25m 200
142.23s Andrew P Simpson
163.92s Stephen Hepworth
167.04s Brian Godfrey
Breast 25m 200
193.25s Carol Todd
Fly 25m 200
165.35s Victoria Linton
168.58s David Manning
Free 25m 200
122.84s Andrew Pilling
127.53s Neil Moore
129.03s Simon Garside
133.99s Christopher Short
134.17s Andrew P Simpson
134.65s David Larkins
142.83s Victoria Linton
143.81s Stephen Hepworth
147.19s Brian Godfrey
148.27s Trevor Thewlis
148.87s Suzanne Linton
152.35s Alistair Russell
155.12s Brent Turner
161.54s John Chaplin
163.23s David Swarbrick
174.62s Anthony Brown
176.22s Carol Todd
185.84s Alison Bullivant
IM 25m 200
158.89s David Manning
164.10s Stephen Hepworth
165.98s Suzanne Linton
172.18s Alistair Russell
193.53s David Swarbrick
Next Time, by popular request (ie Simon) we will have the 50m free rankings; and yes, Simon still leads Andrew Pilling and David Larkins.
If you want to enter the Men’s 1500m or Ladies 800m at Leeds, get your entry in early. They are restricting the event to 4 heats of 8 swimmers. I am not sure how they are selecting the swimmers, but presumably ‘first come first served’ is at least one possibility. I hope they might also look at the submitted times.
Also I expect they will have very long sessions. When they last held it, some events were on the Friday evening. I cannot think they will have less competitors.
Due to a greater work-load, I expect the Flipper will be slightly less frequent and also shorter this year. I say again that any contributions will be very welcome. I have a new program which will help me jazz it up a bit over the next few months. I want to include some graphics, probably by way of cartoons. If there are any volunteers to produce drawings or translate them into machine readable form, please let me know.
Kieren Perkins of Australia broke the world 1500 meters short course record at Canberra on the second of February in a time of 14m 32.40s.
I had missed the fact that Yvonne Brodie-Brown and Suzanne Linton both pass into ‘B’ group this year. I have not been told when the birthdays (both 30) will be, nor yet invited to the parties. I will keep you informed.
Paris – February 2 1992
Peggy Hartung of Germany swam the fastest women’s 50m short course Breast stroke in a time of 31.22s.
Mike Fibbens is swimming faster. He managed 22.26s for 50m short course and 48.48s for the 100m free-style.
F Esposito of France broke the men’s SC European and World record at 200m butterfly with a time of 1m 54.67s.
A Simcie of New Zealand broke the women’s 200m back-stroke SC World record with 2m 7.11s.
An apology: Apparently I owe an apology to Neal Moor. He said I had failed properly to misspell his name. Sorry Neel.
Kieren Perkins of Australia broke his own World 800m Free-style record by 1.25s with a time of 7min 46.6s at New South Wales (15 Feb ’92)
It is heartening to welcome back yet another swimmer, Angus Greenwood. Angus is an ‘A’ group swimmer, with a reputation for being very fast over one length. He is also very useful when you are following him. At the shallow end he has been known to stand up and take a deep breath before setting off back. This serves two purposes. First Jim’s ire is directed away from the rest of us, and second, his feet serve as a good marker for the end of the pool – you know there is another three yards to go! (OK that might be a bit unfair – two yards).
For those not present, we passed something of a milestone on Monday 3rd February. Those in the fourth lane (and all above) managed a training session of 2,866 yards. This is not exactly a world record, but is probably the hardest session yet. Even in the old days(!) when I swam in the second lane, we rarely swam as much as 2,500 yds, and I don’t think we ever got as far as 2,866. Well done Wendy and pals.
Rumours that the Coventry meet might be cancelled may have been correct, but it appears now to have been decided that the meet will go ahead. Stephen Hepworth went last year, so if if you have any questions …
I sometimes wonder why I do this. Do you? I have been swimming with the Masters for two years now. Have I really spent four hours a week suffered much pain and the occasional humiliation just in order to knock 3 seconds off the time taken to swim 50m Free style. It doesn’t even seem to help me to run for a bus!
Those who suffer the inconsistencies of the chlorination at the Sports Centre on Saturday mornings and the ‘Paint Stripper’ effect in the small pool will be pleased to hear of the latest technological advance – stuffing a pool full of ozone. Apparently this has the benefit of ending the ‘stinging eye’ and ‘burned throat’ affects of chlorination, whilst providing an equally effective protection against the myriad diseases and horrible substances brought to the pool each day by the average swimmer (none of us even get to ‘average’ Jim says – so I don’t mean you). We might even be able to get rid of the dreaded goggles. The system has apparently already been installed in some pools nationally.
No doubt this is being looked into by those in power and will prove to be more expensive than chlorination and not half as much fun as watching the average swimmer going purple trying to decide if he dare take a breath from the chlorine cloud at the sports centre.
Do we have any artists. The next Flipper (or perhaps the one after that) may be able to take advantage of improved technology and software and incorporate pictures. Anyone want to start with a cartoon? I will need it in a ‘machine readable’ form, but can cope with most graphics formats.
The continuing Saturday morning story…
15th Feb – The top lane were asked to do 8x75m Fly on 75s. I tried not to laugh – honest.
Angus is getting married at the end of March. He was unable to give me any convincing story as to how he had persuaded the poor unfortunate young lady to succumb.
Congratulations!
I saw a Bumper Sticker saying ‘Water Polo is a way of Life’. That’s funny, I always thought Water Polo was a way of walking – with knees together and a strange grimace.
Another one ‘Masters Swimmers go on for ever’ – Funny, I thought that was coaches.
Competition: Can we have some natty ‘bumper sticker’ slogans: ‘Masters Swimmers do it ten times on ninety seconds’ ‘Masters Swimmers do it with their goggles on’ ‘Speedo – Condoms for Masters’ and so on.
CALENDAR
Meets: For entry forms and entries, please see Wendy, Trish, or Simon. Lifts can also usually be arranged; ASK
March 1992
7 Richmond Closing date
22 For those of a brave disposition, the Batley Duathlon run by Windmill Triathlon club (Batley) 12.00 noon from Batley Sports Centre. 500m swim plus 6 mile run.
27 Closing Date Leeds Open
April 1992
3/4/5 Guernsey Masters – Time for shopping and sightseeing – Apply John Eyre, Belval, Belval Road, Vale, Guernsey
BEGIN COMMENT
Blue Horizon Jersey 0534 34117/75570/20597 – from œ159.00 inc flights car and acc 24 September, 1991)
END COMMENT
4 Richmond Masters and Open Sprint Meet. This was Simon’s favourite last year and an opportunity for all. 25m and 50m in all events! There is also an Open event for the ‘X’ rated swimmers.
6 Closing Date for Darlington.
17/18/19 (Easter)
Jersey. It seems a bit daft having this so close to the Guernsey Meet, but nevertheless it seems a good alternative. Includes open age group. 33. 3m pool. Contact Mrs Gloria Henry, Les Quatre Saisons, St John, Jersey CI (0534-62409)
17/18/19 (Easter)
Coventry Masters. Graham Sykes, City of Coventry Swimming Club, 6 Walkers Orchard, Stoneleigh, Coventry CV8 3JG. Included 800m events last year.
25/26 Leeds Open. After hosting the GB Masters last year, Leeds is back to its usual Masters Open. It seems to have been brought forward this year and sits uncomfortably close to the Coventry meet. However, for the moment this must be the one for us to concentrate on.
May 1992
9 Darlington Masters. A very friendly and well organised meet with very good facilities. After so many sprint events, this one allows you to wallow about on some 100m races. Good value even if it clashes with the Yorkshire Closed Meet. Details from Mrs J Robinson 48 Stonehaven Way Darlington DL1 3RG (0325 282859)
15 Reading Masters – Contact John Jeffery, 6 Warren Road, Woodley, Reading Berks RG5 3AP
16/17 (?) Yorkshire Masters championships. Date and exact location to be confirmed, but set aside the weekend.
June 1992
5/6/7 Crystal Palace GB Masters. National Long Course Championships.
September 1992
North Eastern Counties – location and date to be announced
October 1992
16/17/18
ASA National Masters Championships at Ponds Forge. This will easily be the top event of the year. Bring your own Mars bars – you can’t buy one there.
January 1993
20 Closing Date Sunderland
February 1993
20 Sunderland. Follow David Larkins. Next year he will know where it is.
Regular
Sun 11:00am-Weights
Mon 8:45pm-Camb Rd
Tue 7:30pm-Weights
Tue 8:45pm-Camb Rd
Tue 10:00pm Fleece Lindley
Wed 8:15pm-Camb Rd
Thu 5:00pm-Weights
Sat 8:00am-Sports Centre
If you are getting behind with your fees, don’t. The Masters is very good value for money. If you haven’t begun paying, it is œ12.50 per month.
This time of year you will also be invited to rejoin BOK (œ6.00 pa) and to fork out œ6.00 per annum registration with ASA for competitors. Your first month is free; the others aren’t. If you want ‘them’ to listen to us, the first requirement is that you pay your dues.
If you get a long way behind with your payments, pay two months at a time (at least) until you catch up.
This web-site, and its contents, are the work of David Swarbrick. I speak not on behalf of BOK, nor BOK Masters, indeed for anyone. All compliments and complaints to David Swarbrick. Contact David by e-mail at dswarb@gmail.com.
Created: 20 October 2001
Updated: 2 Nov 2001
