Sad news of the death of Patrick Lunney
British Rowing is sad to report the death of Patrick Lunney, aged 64 years, one of the sport’s most dedicated supporters and volunteers.
Ever since Patrick’s introduction to rowing as a teenager at Evesham Rowing Club in the 1960’s the sport was in his blood. He qualified as an umpire in his early twenties, a fact that he was most proud of, and was regularly to be seen on the circuit both in the West Midlands Region and the Thames Region, for almost 40 years.
A member of City of Oxford Rowing Club for roughly 30 years, Patrick was also a member of the committee – where he employed his financial expertise in the role of Treasurer for a number of years. More recently he took over as CORC’s Regatta Chairman running the annual summer regatta, the Isis Sculls and the Town Bumps, all very successful event’s under his leadership.
Patrick took great joy in the fact that he instilled his love of the sport into his two daughters, Fiona and Rachael. Through the girls he became involved in furthering the development of two more boat clubs. He assisted the founders of Headington School BC to grow the club and was to be seen at every race on his specially-purchased folding bike tearing along the towpath supporting the girls.
At CORC he became aware of Oxford Adaptive Rowing, as it was known then, and with their help Rachael was able to take to the water for the first time. Patrick has subsequently supported Oxford Adaptive in everything they do, particularly once Rachael became the club’s athlete representative, coaching, transporting and mending equipment and arranging adaptive races in the annual City regatta.
Patrick was looking forward to being a member of the London 2012 Games Maker team, having previously volunteered at Dorney Lake for the World Rowing Junior Championships and World Championship events. He will be greatly missed – not only by his wife Deirdre and his children, Fiona, Rachael and James, but also by his many friends in the rowing community who have benefitted from both his willingness to get involved and his humorous yet calm approach to everything.
