AS the umpire’s launch chugs down a mile-long stretch of the Thames in Oxfordshire on a drizzly Thursday morning, Graham Jump draws a deep breath.

He adjusts his striped tie, coloured in the green and black of Grange School Rowing Club, and turns to look at spectators lining the riverbank.

“It’s good this isn’t it?” he says.

“Two boats from far away Northwich competing at Henley Regatta – not too bad at all.”

He is referring to the Hartford school’s crew, a junior men’s quad, which is about take on opponents from Germany in the Fawley Challenge Cup second round.

The four boys, all teenagers, are coached by his nephew Matt.

Scott Ozsanlav-Harris, Matthew Roe, Jonny Glover and Matthew Strickland-Baker are already sat at the start-line of the 2,112m course.

They don’t look across at their rivals, preferring instead to stare straight ahead.

Their faces are etched with lines of concentration.

Later the same day, scullers from neighbours Northwich Rowing Club – this time with the sun blazing down on them – wear the same look before they race in the same competition.

The crews endure contrasting fortunes; Grange are beaten by a swift, if erratic, Frankfurt while Northwich dominate from start to finish a boat from Leander, which counts Henley as home.

Sam Harte, at stroke, is joined in the boat by George Lawton, Leon Langmead and Harry Blake.

For Langmead, it’s a particularly sweet moment.

In green and gold 12 months earlier, he had been part of a line-up – seeded like this one – that lost by half a boat-length in a first-round encounter with Windsor Boys’ School.

And there’s the rub; it’s no longer new for Grange or Northwich to be represented at the world-famous regatta.

A flick through the programme, which lists the crew members – along with their weight – for every boat, provides proof.

Olympic medallist Matthew Langridge, contesting the men’s pair, is not the only oarsman to have honed his craft on the River Weaver.

University crews from Newcastle and Oxford Brookes, and another representing Agecroft, include names that have previously sported a singlet of one of the Northwich clubs.

It’s striking just how many of them there are.

This isn’t a coincidence, nor do they arrive by accident.

The current crop has had to graft to join them.

More than 60 crews entered the Fawley Challenge Cup in 2015.

Of those, 24 qualified for the main draw.

Eight, including Grange and Northwich, were ‘selected’ (or seeded) boats.

A second Northwich crew missed out during a time trial to whittle down the field.

“The standard is higher than ever,” says their coach Jed Barlow, easy to spot in his club’s distinctive blazer and white peaked cap.

“But we’re not here for a day out, or to make up the numbers.

“We want to win.”

Langmead and company bow out on Friday to Nottingham, a foe Barlow picked before the regatta as one to look out for.

He was right; Northwich’s conquerors progress to the final, beating Grange’s nemeses from Germany en route, where they finish as runners-up to defending champions Sir Williams Borlase’s School.

But after Henley, a date in the national regatta calendar every rower rings in red, the season is far from over.

Later this week, Lawton and Ozsanlav-Harris head to the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham to take part in a final trial for Great Britain’s team ahead of next month’s world junior championships.

In recent years Ed Grisedale, Lucy Burgess, Emily Ford and her older brother Tom have taken part in the same event.

Back on the umpire’s launch Jump talks to Dame Di Ellis, former British Rowing chairman, after the race.

Grange School Rowing Club is on her radar.

“You’ve a strong programme now haven’t you?” she asks.

It feels rhetorical, that she already knows the answer.

Rowing in the town isn’t noticed now solely because of Langridge, who collects the Silver Goblets and Nickalls’ Challenge Cup – along with James Foad – as a victor on Sunday afternoon.

In the pictures, he matches a striped Northwich jacket with salmon pink trousers – the tint of Leander, where he is based.

He stood out, just like his old club - run solely by volunteers, remember - is doing.