The swimming club that I swam for has bee around for a long time. How about your club???
Hamilton Aquatic Club's
75th Anniversary
We will be celebrating the Hamilton Aquatic Club's 75th year on Friday, October 19, 2007 at the Michelangelo Banquet Centre - 1555 Upper Ottawa.
If you're interested in helping for this special event or if you want to reserve your spot, please contact Ed McGurk at 905-515-5588.
Our club is actually fairly new...I think the Master's program is less than 10, maybe even less than 5 years old. I know the age group club (GMSC) is only about 3 years old. They just had a swimmer sign with UWyoming though.
The swimming club that I swam for has been around for a long time. How about your club???
We're talking about two clubs here:
The first one to which I belonged (as a teen-ager) and for which I swam
competitively until I was 20-something, that's the Gezira Sporting Club in Cairo, Egypt and was founded in 1935
I remember that date, not because I was around (not born yet) but because the Clubhouse has a stone inscription that says, "something, something
1 9
3 5
and the reason I remember it is
the sum of one row = the difference of the other row 8
the sum of one column = the difference of the other column 4
the sum of one diagonal = the difference of the other diagonal 6
Now, as to Club No.2, that's me. I started in (life in) 1943 (and re-started swimming, end of 2001)
Happy Anniversary
In 1964 I swam in the pool there what a wonderful place. I was taken there by Abdel Latif Abou Heif, Shazily and Mohamed Ali, not the boxer.
Wow, we could have met (I was a member there from 1960 to 1989. In '64 I was still in University so I would have been swimming there almost daily). Abou Heif was, as you know, Egypt's loooooooooooooong distance champ swimmer. Shazly rings a bell (tho' I can't think of the full name) and the last name, just does not (ring any bells, in this context).
Were you already into Long Distance and OW in '64? That's the company you kept (Abou Heif, etc.....) Did you swim in the 50m pool or did they take you to the Lido pool (the terrace and 33 1/3 yards pool) where the main activity was sitting, chatting, watching the girls go by and enjoying Stella (the beer)?
It was the 50m pool. Nabil el Shazlli Egypt, Mohammed Zeiton a Syrian who moved to Egypt, Mahomed Aly, (had dinner at his home, first time I ate soup of the fishes and the last time my first spoonfull was a fish head with eyes), El Gueli Egypt, Mohamed Gamie Egypt and of course Abou.
Many a Stella beer for sure, Also an imitation Coca Cola called Mr. Cola.
It was my third year of marathon swims, it was also a sad year. Four of the marathon swimmers and a coach were killed in a car accident on the way to swim the Suez Cannal Race. Zeiton was driving too fast and ran of the road an hit a house Zeiton and Gueli died plus two other swimmers and the coach, one swimmer survived. Zeiton asked me to go with them in his new Olds, I said I would rather take the bus, I did not like how he drove.
I started swimming with Virginia Masters Swim Team in 1979. The team was not new then because I remember a few swimmers from Virginia when I was swimming in NC. The team had a big reorganization meeting and sponsored a 2-day meet in 1980. That's when the team really started to grow.
I think Walnut Creek Masters started about 1986ish. Good question. I should check.
I think it was before that Karen. I started swimming with Temescal Masters in Oakland in '82, and WCM was in operation with KO at the helm then.
Our team, the Manatee Masters started at Mills College in Oakland in September of '82, with Dix Ozier as Head Coach.
The Kentucky LMSC was formed in 1981, and Lexington Masters was one of the inaugural teams, along with Lakeside Masters from Louisville. There was one more team in the beginning, Plantation, but it's not around anymore. Lexington changed its name to Wildcat in 1989 when we moved to the new pool at the University of Kentucky. In 2003 all the Kentucky clubs merged to form Swim Kentucky, but we still have the local teams for in-state competition. The most interesting thing to me is that the first Masters meet in Kentucky was in 1976 -- 5 years before the LMSC even formed!
