Imagine you were having a dream. Picture this in your dream, a day in early spring on the banks of the Thames in London itself. In the first octuple sculls race at the Schools' Head your crew win, becoming the first boys' crew from your school ever to have won there. In the early evening on the beach at Putney you stand next to the Oxford University boat, Matthew Pinsent as well, as your winning crew are presented with their medals on the boathouse balcony by another Olympic Champion, Greg Searle. To make your dream seem even more unreal, imagine this too. The next morning The Daily Telegraph sports page has a large photograph of your crew as it passed Hampton School during the race. You then meet another Olympic Champion at school the following week, the cox of the Searle brothers' boat, Garry Herbert who agrees to cox your crew. Yet more press coverage. "I had a dream and this is it", said Garry, holding up his gold medal at the Boat Club dinner to a standing ovation in an emotional atmosphere reminding you of his tears on the rostrum in Spain. And then you wake up. You would feel disappointed at having to wake up I expect.

We don't have to wake up.This dream happened to Monkton's novices exactly as I have told it. We were crew number 273 - I don't have to look the number up. I can't forget it. Victory is a very invisible thing. When you lose it is clear what has happened - you know you haven't won, you can think of a series of reasons for it and you look ahead to the next race. Defeat is forward looking. Victory is a much more difficult thing. You spend a long time looking back, searching for it again and never being quite able to grasp it. Three months later, whilst quietly eating biscuits in my sitting room, one of the crew suddenly said, "I've just realised what we did". Victory can be a slow business. It can isolate you too. For several days afterwards the crew became very close, wanting to spend time together reliving their own personal experiences of the day. Of the many stories to be told and exaggerated in later life, John Greene's recovery will take some beating (as will his tale of how he won a pot rowing at Llandaff regatta in a womens senior 2 boat). Lying at home with a temperature of 104 and unable to train for a week, John returned to school the night before the Schools' Head to take his place in the boat. What if he hadn't returned until a day later? What if....?

The crew won four head races and three regattas in total though they would have expected to have won more but for the cancellation of two regattas later in the term. They won their head race events at Bristol Ariel, Avon County and the City of Bristol setting course records for the octuple scull. The only eight ever to catch and pass them in a head race (they'll not like me writing this) was on Bristol Docks with their coach rowing at five in the middle of a Senior 2 boat. They won the Schools' Head in a time of nine minutes exactly beating Westminster School by 11 seconds and, amongst others, Hampton School by 54 seconds.

Early on in the summer term they won the pewter tankards at Wallingford and at Avon County. How much I hoped they could win a medal at the National Schools' Regatta where there was a big entry with 15 crews competing in the octuple event. In football speak this would have been "the double". We won our first heat, came third in the semi-final and lost a close battle with Shiplake College for the bronze medal in the final. This was our first defeat of the season, in the most important race there is.

The other crews had simply caught up on the early start we had had to rowing when we were able to row once a week during the winter term as part of the Rangers programme. (We have had to abandon this progranune for next year, sadly). Greatness depends on qualities of will, courage and concentration. It also depends on self-confidence and a willingness to take on the rest. While I would never pretend this was a "great" crew in the proper sense of the word, it was never wrecked by any self-doubt. When I once read out the list of competitors for the London race including many of the names in the rowing world our talented cox said, "We should win that". There is nowt more encouraging than the innocence, or ignorance, of youth.

At the end of the season the crew also won the quads event at the beautiful Ironbridge regatta over the 500 metre sprint course. Many thanks must go to all those parents who came to support us, many coming to every single event. To the Weldons (who arrived in a London cab at Barnes bridge bringing us news of the results from Putney), to Joe Cullum (who camped with us at Ironbridge) and to the Mildinhalls, Greenes and Mrs Pierce (who managed between them to cover every regatta) thanks for being part of "the crew". The fundamental thing about sport is it is fun. This season was fun. When announcing his retirement, Ian Botham was asked what epitaph he would like on his tombstone.Very quickly he replied, "Life. Be in it". I think we all felt life was not passing us by.