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Fascinating insights as relevant to team building as to rowing

Customer Rating:

This is a fascinating inside look at the preparation by the 2007 winning Cambridge Boat Race crew by a sociologist who more or less lived with the squad throughout the period and who appears to have played a crucial role at some moments - for instance in helping sort out some disputes within one of the crews. It comes close to Daniel Topolski's 'Boat Race', the story of the Oxford revival from 1973 to 1984 and for me one of the best books on rowing ever written. It is miles ahead of Topolski's account of the 1987 mutiny - for me far over rated. I was once captain of the rowing club (Jesus College) right next to the Goldie Boathouse (the CUBC headquarters) and have known some Boat Race oarsmen quite well - e.g rowed in races with them. And yet it is a very closed world, not open to the uninitiated. I had no idea what went on in there and this book really does open the doors. I found it extremely interesting. Some fasinating insights included the detailed description by an (anonymous) squad member of how legally to raise testosterone levels before a race (the lengths these men would go to!). And then quick advice on how best to lower them again. The selection battles for the crew are well described and left me with the uneasy feeling that there might well have been people who had good grounds for feeling unhappy about not being in the crew. The account of the replacement of Russ Glenn as cox just before the race is very sympathetic but, by contrast, leaves one in little doubt that the decision was hard but fair. I was left with a great deal of sympathy - even liking - for the crew and for the Head Coach Duncan Holland, who left his position as Head Coach when his contract was not renewed after losing the Boat Race in 2008. And yet it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the crew, while winning, had significantly underperformed. A couple of minor black spots: The book frustratingly does not examine the controversy over strokeman Thorsten Engelmann, the heavist man in Boat Race history at over 110 kg. He is the only person to have a Blue withdrawn when he left the University without completing his degree - but he comes across as a very sympathetic figure. The photos are a disappointment - almost none of the crew as a crew, or of the race itself. Given that some of the people who play a key part in the story did not make the crew, it was a shame that none of them (other than Glenn) feature in the pictures. I would also have liked the statistics - the crew lists (both races) and times etc at the end. I have worked in the organisational development field over recent years and the story is as relevant to team building as much as it is to rowing aficionados. I do recommend it.