Murray Cods
The Murray Bridge Men’s Eight Rowing Team is the town’s most famous sporting team. And the Murray Bridge Rowing Club is one of South Australia’s oldest and most successful rowing clubs, established in 1909. Their clubhouse is in Sturt Reserve.
The team raced with a dried cod attached to the bow of the boat and were nicknamed the Murray Cods. At a time when rowing was almost exclusively the sport of Adelaide gentlemen, the working-class men from Murray Bridge faced significant discrimination.
But with their coach, Teddy Higgs, getting them to train long distances on the Murray and to race any paddle steamers that happened to come along, they improved and became State Champions in 1913. They won the race by 250 yards!
World War I interrupted and many of the club members went enlisted. One was killed and several others returned from the war badly injured. Remarkably, many of the men continued to row after the war. In 1920, 1922 and 1923 they won the Australian championships, despite being much older than their competitors.
With the Olympic Games in Paris looming in 1924, the Murray Cods won their final qualifying race against Western Australia, winning the right to represent Australia. Then followed months of fundraising to help the team get to Paris. Even when they finally reached Paris, they couldn’t afford to stay in the capital, and busked to supplement their inadequate daily allowance. After two weeks at Nogent Sur Marne, they moved to the Olympic rowing course at Argenteuil. In spite of bad food that gave some of the crew dysentery, they managed to come second in their heat and repechage. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough though to get them through to the finals.