Trying ‘Rowing Blazers’ For Size: A Review by Tim Koch

The title leaf of Rowing Blazers by Jack Carlson (Thames and Hudson, 2014). It shows Ellie Piggott and Brianna Stubbs of Wallingford Rowing Club. They won Gold in the lightweight doubles at the World Under-23 Championships in 2010. © Carlson Media Inc.

Tim Koch writes:

Today, 2 July, is the first day of Henley Royal Regatta and it is also most people’s first chance to see the exciting new book that HTBS has been talking about for some time, Rowing Blazers.

The term ‘coffee table book’ is often used pejoratively – and for good reason. Large format, lavishly illustrated publications, frequently with minimal text, can sometimes be ‘hack jobs’ produced by those who don’t know and don’t care in order to make a quick profit from those who happily accept superficiality over substance*. It is presumably for this reason that some publishers prefer to use the rather less satisfying term ‘adult illustrated non-fiction’ for such productions. Labels notwithstanding, Jack Carlson’s Rowing Blazers, is one of the superior works in the illustrated book category. It is clearly a ‘labour of love’ by someone who knows and cares about the subject and who has spent an inordinate amount of time and trouble producing not only the pictures but also the text. The publisher tells us that the book:

….. looks at the authentic striped, piped, trimmed, and badged blazers that are still worn by oarsmen and women around the world today, and at the elaborate rituals, elite athletes, prestigious clubs, and legendary races associated with them… The stunning original photographs, many by “prep” guru F.E. Castleberry, are taken in situ at the historic boathouses, campuses, and team rooms of clubs in the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and beyond. These enchanting portraits are… accompanied by histories, anecdotes, and captivating descriptions of the esoteric traditions behind each blazer.

Geoff Roth, who rowed for Cambridge University Boat Club in 2010, wearing his ‘Blue’ blazer in the Captain’s Room of CUBC’s Goldie Boathouse, The jacket’s stains are unexplained but by tradition a CUBC blazer is never cleaned. © Carlson Media Inc.

Jack is well qualified to produce such a book. His rowing career began as a cox at Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Massachusetts, a role that gave him his first trip to Henley and with it his introduction to rowing blazers. In his journey from school to the rowing crews of Georgetown and of Oxford Universities, via the U.S. National Team and recently a Henley medal, he found himself ‘ideally placed to investigate the bizarre vestments in depth’.  I would suggest that ‘investigate’ is too mild a word as, after recruiting a number of ‘celebrated photographers’, he began an intermittent three-year worldwide journey, a guest of the international rowing fraternity:

The rowing world is a small one..... members of the rowing community are always willing to help one another and assist in any effort that promotes the sport. So – thanks to the fraternal spirit and enthusiasm of hundreds of rowers and coxswains – I was able to arrange photo shoots at clubs around the world and with some of the most prominent oarsmen and women at these clubs… We jumped over burning boats in Oxford, slept on strangers’ couches in Wisconsin, and witnessed beer-soaked blazer rituals in the Netherlands…

Like many from the American New England states, Jack has a foot in the Old World as well as in the New. He gives an outsider’s affectionate view on this quintessentially British garment which, like many other things (particularly in sport) Britain gave to the world and the world took it, adapted it to local culture, customs and conditions and sent it back to the Old Country. Writing about the early nineteenth century ‘boating jackets’ Jack says:

The chosen colours and details comprised a code that revealed the college, club and particular crew with which a rower was affiliated. The British, after all, have always had a hyper-awareness of subtle social distinctions and a flair for uniforms and pageantry.  

The understated Oxford University Boat Club blazer, here worn by Colin Smith (OUBC 2004, 06, 09). While a dark blue jacket with dark blue trim and no badge may not be the boldest of garments, it is can still be very effective. Jack quotes the Livingstone brothers (who rowed against each other in the 2003 Boat Race) in their book, Blood Over Water (2009): ‘It is astonishing what the sight of a Blues blazer can do to many a sensible, well-adjusted girl’. Where can I buy one?  © Carlson Media Inc.

I have to make two declarations before reviewing this book. Firstly, I liked it before I even saw it and this not a very professional approach for a reviewer. Rowing Blazers is very much a ‘Hear The Boat Sing’ sort of thing as it shows how a forward looking, innovative and modern sport such as rowing can still produce and parade these very clear acknowledgements of its origins, history and heritage. Secondly, perhaps as proof that rowing ability or good looks are not a requirement to be included, I am pictured in my Auriol Kensington regatta blazer, trying to look as though I have the right to be alongside Murray and Bond, Steve Redgrave, the Winklevoss brothers et al.

Chris Bartley, now a member of the British lightweight four, a winner at the 2010 World Championships and a silver medallist at London 2012 in his King’s School Chester Boat Club blazer. The ‘HR’ cypher on the badge stands for Henry VIII who founded the school in 1541. © Carlson Media Inc.

It is unusual to take much note of the words in any book that is predominantly about the pictures but Rowing Blazers’s is an exception.  If the photographs were removed, the text alone would still be an absorbing read. Jack’s writing is both pithy and informed and more space is allocated to the printed word than is often the case with such publications. His researches reveal many delightful and/or obscure facts and stories and also challenges several myths (though he does perpetuate the defamation of John Phelps and his role the 1877 ‘Dead Heat’ Boat Race)!

In the case of the entry on Lady Margaret, the boat club of St John’s College, Cambridge, several ‘tall stories’ are examined. The tale begins when a St John’s crew allegedly mounted a sword on their bow during a race and accidentally killed the cox of the crew in front. When St John’s Boat Club was banned ‘forever’ as a result of this, the story goes that they reappeared as ‘Lady Margaret Boat Club’ and wore bloody red jackets to mark the incident. All this is ‘pure fantasy’ but the very real red jackets worn by LMBC are significant. Jack holds that as rowing developed as a sport at Oxford and Cambridge in the early nineteenth century, colourful flannel ‘rowing jackets’ or ‘boating coats’ appeared as practical garments to be worn on the water, both to identify the crews and to keep them warm. Soon, however, they were adopted as part of a young gentleman’s informal dress après-rowing. The first recorded use of the term ‘blazer’ (in inverted commas) to refer to one of these garments was in the Cambridge University General Almanac and Register for 1852 – but solely to describe the ‘blazing red’ boating coats of Lady Margaret Boat Club. It was only eighteen years later, in the 1870 edition of the Almanac, that all boat clubs’ jackets were called ‘blazers’ and the term soon spread. Jack holds that it is a myth that it was the coats worn by the crew of the Royal Navy ship, HMS Blazer in the mid-nineteenth century that gave rise to the name, calling it ‘a classic case of false etymology’.

One of the book’s more informal pictures shows Andy Triggs-Hodge MBE in the unofficial but popular version of the Molesey Boat Club blazer. Andy won Gold in the British Coxless Four in Beijing and in London. He also stroked the winning Oxford crew in the 2005 Boat Race and so presumably has an OUBC blazer and a couple of British Olympic Team ones as well. © Carlson Media Inc.

So much for the prose, what of the pictures? Some photographs are pure ‘prep’ and would not be out of place in a Ralph Lauren catalogue. Others have more of a journalistic, Sunday newspaper ‘colour supplement’ feel and a few owe something to reportage photography – but all are a delight. The fact that the blazers are all modelled by ‘real’ rowers could have produced problems. At the risk of perpetuating outdated stereotypes, I think that when amateur models pose to be photographed in a professional context, many men worry about appearing effeminate (and so tend to adopt a ‘manly scowl’) and many women fear that they will either be portrayed in some sort of sensual way or that some imagined physical defect will be highlighted (and so appear slightly uncomfortable). Remarkably the photographers for Rowing Blazers seem to have (almost entirely) overcome these problems with the 250 plus ‘real people’ that they pictured. However, perhaps the models are secondary and the real stars of the book are both the blazers and the settings in which they are pictured.

Sir Steve Redgrave CBE, the ‘local boy made good’ in the colours of his home club, Marlow. Famously he won Gold at five consecutive Olympics. Though only 52, he could be described as ‘the grand old man of British rowing’ especially as it seems likely that he will become the Chairman of Henley Royal Regatta later this year. © Carlson Media Inc.

My favourite photographs are of the near rags worn by some Dutch student clubs (which, at Henley, are also a nice counterpoint to the pristine jackets especially purchased for the occasion by many American crews). The British sometimes like to think that they have to monopoly on eccentric customs and traditions but many universities in the Netherlands score higher on the ‘madness meter’. Exact customs vary from boat club to boat club but the basic idea is that the same blazers are passed down from one generation of students to the next. They suffer particularly as they are worn in the post regatta ‘fights’ in which oarsmen attempt to wrestle each other to the ground by their lapels – but repairing and cleaning is only allowed in very exceptional circumstances, if at all. A familiar and distinctive sight at Henley, the inherited blazers of clubs such as DSRV ‘Laga’, ASR ‘Nereus’, and KSRV ‘Njord’ seem to come in two sizes – ‘too big’ and ‘too small’ – and in two conditions – ‘dirty’ and ‘disgusting’. Whatever their crimes against tailoring, they are worn with enormous and justifiable pride.

On the Rowing Blazers website, Jack writes:

I hope that this book serves as an introduction for the uninitiated into an otherwise arcane world and brings the rowing community in touch with our sport’s colorful heritage. And I hope readers have as much fun perusing the book as we did making it.

I am sure that all three of these hopes will be realized. After a short time spent in the pages of this book, you will feel as if you were Jack’s companion on his aquatic and sartorial road trip, sharing with him the ‘fraternal spirit and enthusiasm’ of the rowing community on his journey into the ridiculous but delightful world of rowing blazers.

A picture not from the book but from the HTBS archive, showing Jack Carlson (far right) celebrating his Henley Medal for coxing Taurus to victory in the Britannia Challenge Cup, Henley 2013.

Rowing Blazers is published by Thames & Hudson in Europe and was officially released on 26 June. The book is available from Rock the Boat, New Wave, Leander Club and the Henley Royal Regatta Shop. Of course, you are also able to buy a copy in Henley at Richard Way Bookseller, 54 Friday Street, or give them a call at  INT+44+(0)1491-576663.The book will be published by Vendome in North America, and will be released there in September. U.S. residents can pre-order signed copies here.

*The best example of a rowing book like this is Regatta: A Celebration of Rowing by Benjamin Ivry (Simon and Schuster, 1988). Thankfully, now out of print.

Book Review: Bonnie Brave Boat Rowers

Two years ago, Christopher Dodd, rowing writer and historian at the River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, published his Pieces of Eight: Bob Janousek and his Olympians about the coach from Prague who ‘saved’ British rowing, which had hit rock bottom at the end of the 1960s. While Pieces of Eight is a 224-page book about amateur oarsmen going to the World Championships and the Olympic Games, Dodd’s most recently published book, Bonnie Brave Boat Rowers, is a thin 97-page book about, as the sub-title reads, ‘The Heroes, Seers and Songsters of the Tyne’. So not only has the author swapped rivers, so to say, instead of amateur rowers, in his new book, he is telling stories about England’s professional oarsmen and the boat builders of the Tyne during the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s – indeed, a far cry from any Olympic Games in modern time.

By now, there is a fairly good amount of published books about the most famous professionals who started to ply their oars and sculls on the Tyne before they travelled the world for world titles and high wages, especially the latter. Of course, Harry Clasper and James Renforth are mentioned in the book, but in the first chapter Dodd writes about Jack Hopper of Hexham, a nowadays forgotten professional sculler (unless you remember Dodd’s article about him in the Regatta magazine of December 1987; which, as a matter of fact, I do).

Hopper, alias Smith of Scotswood, entered as a 20-year-old in the 1922 Newcastle Christmas Handicap with his eyes on the £100 prize money, quite a nice sum for a working lad at this time. He entered under both his real and false names to confuse the organisers and the other contenders. Though, this would be his first Christmas Handicap, Hopper was the fastest mover in any of the bookmakers’ books. He reached the semi-final, but there he was found guilty of a foul. He was also unlucky in the other Christmas Handicap races he entered, in 1923, 1924, 1927 and 1933. He never won any of these races, though he did reach the final in 1933 when he raced against Bert Barry of Putney, who, earlier in December that year, had beaten the Australian Major Goodsell for the world title. Hopper got a 15 second handicap, which would be impossible even for Barry to catch up. However, Hopper ran into the Redheugh Bridge – it seems his ‘flagger’ had lost him in the fog – so the world champion finished the race alone and claimed the prize money. Soon thereafter the handicap ‘fizzled out’.

Jack Hopper left an epitaph in 1983, Dodd writes. Hopper said: ‘As regards professional racing, there’s nothing honest about it, nothing at all.’

In the second chapter, before Christopher Dodd (on the right) embarks on telling the story of the famous boat builders on the Tyne, most of whom had been, or still were, professional rowers when they were crafting their boats and shells, he beautifully writes about the Tyne, Newcastle, its industries and the bridges in the city in a short account. When he gets to the boat builders, it is Matthew Taylor who starts the list. Taylor, a ship carpenter, who was hired by Royal Chester Rowing Club for £2:5s a week as a trainer in 1854, built an outrigger fixed-seat four, the Victoria, which had a smooth bottom, a boat with which the club took Stewards’ Challenge Cup at Henley in 1855. Taylor is credited for introducing the keel-less boat (that is with the keel inboard).

However, it is not certain that Taylor was the first one to build a keel-less boat, Dodd writes. J. B. Littledale, Royal Chester’s captain, stroke and benefactor, has also been claimed for the design, and so has Harry Clasper, whose son, Jake Clasper (a boat builder in his on right), once wrote that he coxed his father and his crew in a smooth-bottom boat at the Thames Regatta in 1849. Boat builder Robert Jewitt had a dispute with Clasper in a newspaper saying that he was the one, who in 1843, built a boat with the keel inboard. It is clear that we will never know who the first keel-less boat builder was. The Victoria – now at the River & Rowing Museum – is not the only boat mentioned in this chapter. Other famous ones, St Agne’s, The Five Brothers and Lord Ravensworth, to mention a few, are also to be found in this chapter. Another boat building company that is brought up is Swaddle and Winship, which built some famous eights for Oxford and Cambridge in the 1870s.

In “Pulling clivor on the coaly river”, the third and last chapter in Bonnie Brave Boat Rowers, we meet songwriters and singers whose songs were sung in pubs and music halls to celebrate the local professional sports heroes who by the 1860s were almost all oarsmen. As much as the writers praised the Tynesiders, they ridiculed the oarsmen from the Thames. Dodd writes: ‘They sold their latest works as pamphlets, and they did for Tynesiders what newspaper columnists, bloggers and chat shows do today.’

James Renforth

As the songwriters rejoiced in the local oarsmen’s victories, they dismayed in their defeat. When James Renforth, a former iron worker, who became world champion in the single sculler by beating the ‘southerner’ Harry Kelley on the Thames in November 1868, died at the oar during a world championship race in the four in Canada in 1871, the cable that reached the people by the Tyne was first not understood. The songwriter Joe Wilson, a friend of Renforth’s, wrote:

Ye cruel Atlantic cable,
Whay’s myed ye bring such fearful news?
When Tynesdie’s hardly yeble
Such sudden grief to bide.
Hoo me heart it beats iv’rybody greets,
As the whisper run throo dowley streets
We’ve lost poor Jimmy Renforth,
The Champein O’Tyneside!

It is always such a delight to pick up a book by Christopher Dodd, who is a master of telling stories. No one can spin a yarn of a rowing tale as well as he can. Not only is this little book incredibly well-written, some passages are even beautifully written. Congratulations and well done, Chris!

Do yourself a favour now, drop what you have in your hands, and order a copy of this book immediately – unless, you can wait till you are in Henley-on-Thames next time, which better be soon.

Bonnie Brave Boat Rowers is published by AuthorHouse: eBook: ISBN 9781491895535. Softback: ISBN 9781491895528.

eBook or Softback available from www.bonnierowers.com ; www.bookstore-authorhouse.com and all good book stores on the web.

Softback copies are also available from these shops in Henley: River & Rowing Museum, Richard Way Book Shop, Bell Bookshop, Leander Club, and Henley Royal Regatta, and all other good book shops.

Signed copies can be ordered direct from the author – send mail address and cheque for £9.95 plus postage (UK £1.17; EUR £3.70; Rest of World £4.75) to:

Christopher Dodd, River & Rowing Museum, Mill Meadows, Henley-on-Thames, RG9 1BF, UK

For more about Dodd’s books please visit www.doddsworld.org

This review was updated on 21 May, at 4:30 p.m., as I, in the first version, wrongly made Major Goodsell an American. He was an Australian, of course, which was kindly pointed out by Tom Weil ~ thanks.

Book Review: Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin

Hard cover edition

The year 2013 was a good year for rowing books. In August, for example, Olympic champion Katharine Grainger came out with her autobiography Dreams do come True. One rowing book, which was published in June, has frequently come up on this website, Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat, which we reviewed on 19 August. Brown’s book was nominated for the prestigious British award the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, which HTBS’s Tim Koch wrote about on 27 November. Tim stated that whether The Boys in the Boat won this award or not ‘it is already the HTBS Book of the Year’ – unfortunately, Brown’s book did not win the William Hill Sports Book award, instead, it went to Doped by Jamie Reid.

Of course, I agree with Tim, but would like to make a small adjustment, or should I say, addition, because while The Boys in the Boat for sure is the best non-fiction rowing book of 2013, the award for the best fiction rowing book of that year would, without question, go to the novel Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Flat Water Tuesday, which also came out in hard cover in June 2013, will be released in a paperback edition in the U.S. High time for a HTBS review of the book.

Flat Water Tuesday is about Rob Carrey, a teenager from a working-class background, who arrives at the posh private school Fenton School in Connecticut, on a rowing scholarship. For many years this elite school has rowed against its rival school, Warwick, in a coxed four race on a Tuesday afternoon. Despite being a champion sculler – and in the beginning of the school year, Rob naively believes that he will continue to scull for Fenton School – he has been picked for a seat in the so called ‘God Four’, as the crew for a couple of years has lost this, the most important, race of the year to Warwick.

But there are tensions within the crew and already from the start there is rivalry, almost enmity, between Rob and the team captain Connor Payne, who comes from a wealthy family, whose high expectations of him can only lead to disaster. Not only do the young men fight (and they very soon actually get themselves into a fist fight) each other in whatever their rowing coach, Canning, is throwing at them – and that is a lot – there is also a rivalry between them for the crew’s female coxswain, Ruth, who is more focused on her job in the cox seat than her actual school work. The closer the crew gets to the Tuesday race against Warwick, the more they display an unhealthy competitive spirit, especially by Connor.

Ron Irwin

Author Ron Irwin rowed at high school in Buffalo, NY, at Kent School, CT, and at Trinity College, CT, and it is a great pleasure to see how he is guiding both the rowing-knowledge and the non-rowing readers through the chapters of the narrative that have the ‘rowing scenes’. Anyone who is interested in the sport of rowing will be glad to read how accurate our beautiful sport is told. While I vividly still remember the horrid tests on the ergs, I had totally repressed the bench pulls – till I read Irwin’s novel. However, while we rowers would happily be content with a novel about the God Four and its struggles before, during, and after their race against Warwick, the readers who do not share our love for rowing might easily have got tired of these parts of Irwin’s story, if they alone formed the entire novel. Well, they do not. Flat Water Tuesday has two ‘levels’, or two time periods, following two threads. Irwin is cleverly telling two parallel stories, one of the young Rob’s rowing at Fenton School, and one fifteen years later, when Rob is in his 30s, being a successful documentary filmmaker who is travelling the world.

It is after a film shoot in Eastern Africa, on his way to his girlfriend’s flat in New York, Rob is reading a letter from one of his teammates in the God Four. Later he is reached by the news that the letter writer has jumped from a bridge and killed himself. He receives a phone call from Ruth pleading with him to attend their class 15-year reunion at Fenton. Rob knows that if he goes, he will have to confront the many demons that grew out of his year at Fenton, and at the same time deal with the looming break-up with his girlfriend Carolyn, who at one time was pregnant with Rob’s child. When she had a miscarriage, Rob was unreachable on a film shoot in Africa, and she still blames him for not contacting her during her pregnancy.

Paperback edition

If, for a short while, I would put myself back in my literary studies at Lund University in Sweden, and remember what my professors back then would ask from us students; to perform a close-reading or dissection of the text and count up the different themes in the novel, I would come up with themes like rich and poor; happiness and tragedy; victory and defeat; youth and maturity; and love and lost love – all the great themes in our lives and in great novels. And Flat Water Tuesday is a marvellous novel, not only for rowers, but also for everyone who enjoys a well-written story. Irwin’s language is beautiful, even poetic in certain parts, and it carries us readers, uneasy at times, to the end that will reveal what happened one tragic evening at Fenton and which forever would change the lives of the young members of the God Four. But at the end there might be hope and reconciliation.

Flat Water Tuesday is an amazing novel.

Flat Water Tuesday can be ordered at Amazon, here, or buy it or order it via your local book shop, wherever you live.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, HTBS will post a long interview with Ron Irwin.

Macmillan Audio has kindly released a free listening sample of the first chapter of Flat Water Tuesday for HTBS readers:

The Secret Supporters of the Boat Race

Hannah Gates's book The Secret Supporters of the Boat Race.

A new book has just been published about the Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race. HTBS’s Hélène Rémond took a closer look at the book and asked the author, Hannah Gates, a couple of questions. Hélène writes:

Who are the secret supporters of the Boat Race?

You will get the answer if you read the first children’s book about the Boat Race, The Secret Supporters of the Boat Race, which is written, illustrated and produced by Hannah Gates, who graduated from London College of Fashion in 2008 with a degree in Fashion Photography.

Set during the 2003 Boat Race, which the Dark Blues won by a foot, the book captures the passion of the Oxford University BC, while providing a thrilling education for kids about the wildlife by the Thames.

‘Who knows, maybe it will inspire a few future rowing champions’, says Hannah. The book, aimed at 4- to 6-year-olds, tells the story of how the animals on the banks of the River Thames learn about the upcoming Boat Race, how they follow it and then celebrate the race.

‘How did you get the idea for the book?’

‘What spurred me on specifically was my partner, Robin Bourne-Taylor. He rowed for Oxford four times in some incredible races, as well as arguably one of the best ever crews when he was President in 2005’, says Hannah. ‘He was in the GB squad for many years and competed in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics as well as in various world championships. With some of his friends still rowing, and all of them still loyal in particular to the institution that is the University Boat Race, it inspired me to create this book. Moreover, a lot of them are having babies’, explains Hannah.

Hannah Gates grew up in Cambridge, spending a lot of time in the Zoological Department at the University and walking along the River Cam. She now lives in Ghana with Robin. Hannah is working as an equine and child photographer, as well as in branding and advertising. She has been a teaching assistant and private tutor.

‘You have produced the book yourself?’

‘Publishers were very keen on the illustrations, but didn’t want to risk investing in such a niche topic,’ Hannah says. ‘Obviously, I was not going to change the plot, but as a result I needed to fund the project myself. Therefore, I have promoted it as much as I can with the help of rowers, and I am inviting people to order copies by emailing a special account’.

You can order a copy of The Secret Supporters of the Boat Race by sending an e-mail to boatracebook@gmail.com (10 pounds excluding postage). Hannah is planning to produce more copies of her book, and many orders are likely to come in this Boat Race week. Book orders made now will be delivered in May.

Follow Hannah on Twitter @RowingBook and get more information on her website: www.hannahgatesphotography.co.uk

The Legendary Casey Brothers

Greg Denieffe writes,

According to W. B. Yeats, Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone* but I’m not so sure after reading reports of a new book called The Legendary Casey Brothers.

In an updated edition of a book originally published in the USA about the Casey family from Sneem, County Kerry, author Jim Hudson tells the story of seven brothers who rowed successfully at home on the Lakes of Killarney, and in both London and Boston as well as becoming folk heroes in the world of professional wrestling.

The publisher Collins Press has this to say about the book:

In 1982 the seven Casey brothers were inducted into the Irish Sports Hall of Fame, the only family ever to receive that honour. The brothers, from Sneem in County Kerry, starred as Olympic-class oarsmen, Tug-of-War champions, professional wrestlers and boxers and won fame throughout the sporting world. Steve, known as ‘Crusher’ Casey, became the supreme wrestler in the world and for a decade no one could match him. When he turned to boxing, the great Joe Louis refused to go into the ring with him. In 1983 at a family reunion in Sneem, five brothers, all in their seventies, climbed into the four-oar boat they used to win championships in the 1930s. Although they had not rowed together in fifty years, they still moved with their former natural unity. Sports people from Kerry have achieved fame in many fields but the success of the Caseys surely outshines all.

The list of Casey sporting achievements is many and varied:

·    Paddy Casey was successful in the Salter Cup races at Killarney Regatta and was undefeated light and heavyweight wrestling champion of Ireland and also won many long-distance cycling races in Ireland
·    Dan Casey was a contractor, coxswain of the Salter Cup crews, champion oarsman, and a tug-of-war champion
·    Jack Casey remained in Ireland, married and took up farming and fishing. A superb oarsman in his own right, he helped the Caseys win the Salter Cup at the Killarney Regatta
·    Tom Casey was also in the Salter Cup winning crews and became British amateur wrestling champion in 1937 after only nine days’ training before moving to Boston and joining Riverside Boat Club. In 1940, he won the Casey Codman Challenge on the Charles River
·    Jim Casey was also successful in the Salter Cup races, went to Boston and joined his brothers in Riverside Boat Club and won the Canadian and South American wrestling titles
·    Mick Casey in a career that lasted over twenty years, had 200 wrestling bouts
·    And, of course, probably the greatest of them all, Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey became the supreme wrestler in the world and he retired undefeated as world wrestling champion. But before that he led the Sneem crew to their three successive Salter Cup victories, thereby winning the cup outright; he rowed successfully in London.

The Caseys, from left: Tom, Paddy, Jim, Steve. Front: Dan (Cox)

The Irish Times recently reviewed the book in an article called "The Dream Team from Sneem". In the book you can read about their early life in Kerry rowing traditional boats and winning the coveted Salters Cup at Killarney Regatta three times in 1930, 1931 and 1933 (no regatta in 1932); their move to London and their successes there with Ace Rowing Club and their bid to row at the 1936 Olympic Games (* see opening paragraph above!) which was foiled owing to their earnings from professional wrestling.

Tom, Jim and Steve Casey (l. to r.) on the Charles River, Boston, Massachusetts.
Tom, Jim and Steve moved to Boston and rowed for Riverside Boat Club. From A Brief History of Riverside Boat Club:

Among the club’s more colorful oarsmen was Steve “Crusher” Casey. An immigrant from Skibbereen, County Kerry, a professional wrestler and boxer, and a Boston icon, Steve and two of his seven brothers raced victoriously for Riverside throughout the 1930’s and 40’s [sic]. In testimony to his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, his statue stands today in his hometown, while in this country his bars, Casey’s on Huntington Avenue near Boston Symphony Hall and Casey’s Too in Hull, were favorite watering holes for locals, Irish immigrants and rowers alike.

The Irish Times article comments on their time in Boston:

Four years afterward (1940), three of the brothers went some way to proving their point, when they challenged all-comers to a single skulls (sic) race on Boston’s Charles River. Only one of America’s best rowers, Russell Codman, was brave enough to accept. Watched by a quarter-million spectators, he was beaten into fourth place.

The Dorchester Reporter has more details on the challenge issued by the Casey brothers and the race with Codman.

The original book by Jim Hudson was published privately in the USA in 1990 and was called The Legend of the Caseys (The Toughest Family on Earth!).

For the new edition of the book, Radio Kerry presenter and former GAA referee Weeshie Fogarty and Kerry-based videographer Christy Riordan travelled to Texas to meet with Myrtle Casey, Jim Casey’s wife.

Here is Killarney Advertiser journalist Éamonn Fitzgerald’s preview of The Legendary Casey Brothers, to be launched in Sneem by Olympic Gold medallist Ronnie Delany on 18 October:

“They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me”; these were the immortal lines from Maurya, (the spelling used by Synge) the mother in Synge’s Riders to the Sea, as she was ‘caoining’ the death of her sons. This quotation surfaced when I read a new book from The Collins Press, The Legendary Casey Brothers. Written some years ago about the legendary seven Casey brothers from Sneem, it will be launched in The Sneem Hotel by Olympic gold medallist Ronnie Delany on October 18.

Written by Jim Hudson some years ago it is based on interviews with Jim Casey and his wife Myrtle in Texas telling the story of the seven legendary world champion brothers from Sneem. The author is now deceased [sic ~ see Comment No. 1 below!] and so is Jim Casey, but his wife, 92 year old Myrtle is coming out of a nursing home and travelling to Sneem for the launch. When Myrtle was on holidays in Sneem some years ago she was put in touch with Radio Kerry’s Weeshie Fogarty and Christy Riordan. She wanted the Casey brothers’ story to be published so she invited Weeshie and Christy to her home in Texas in 2008 and gave them access to all the memorabilia and documents, including the unpublished book. This duo proved the catalyst for the publication and Collins Press took up the challenge. Christy Riordan has also produced an excellent DVD on The Casey brothers of Sneem.

You can look inside the book here and check out the DVD and watch a seven minute trailer here.

The Casey family sporting prowess continues through the generations: 

Paddy’s son, Patrick Casey, was a member of the Vesta Rowing Club in London and was a member of their Britannia Challenge Cup winning crew at the 1981 Henley Royal Regatta;

Jack’s son, Noel, was a successful rower and coach with Vesta Rowing Club, but is best remembered for his time with Thames Rowing Club; particularly coaching amongst others, his daughters Bernadette and Caroline to many national successes and to seventh place for Great Britain at the World Rowing Championships held in Munich in 1981. He also coached the Great Britain women’s eight to a fifth place finish at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. 

Bernadette Casey Carroll now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and her children Jack and Victoria are according to The Kerryman deeply involved in sports including rowing and have competed in England at a very high level.

‘Romantification’ aside, I’m looking forward to reading the book and learning more about this extraordinary family.

 The DVD The Casey Brothers.

The Clever Cox - A Memoir

Stephen Hawking coxing.

Tim Koch writes from London,

HTBS has previously written about Stephen Hawking's involvement with rowing while an undergraduate at University College, Oxford and its importance in his personal development before being diagnosed with a form of motor neuron disease. He has recently published his autobiography entitled, inevitably perhaps, My Brief History (Bantam Press, 2013). The publishers tell us:

For the first time, Stephen Hawking turns his gaze inward for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution. My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking’s improbable journey, from his post-war London boyhood to his years of international acclaim and celebrity. Illustrated with rarely seen photographs, this concise, witty and candid account introduces readers to the inquisitive schoolboy whose classmates nicknamed him ‘Einstein’; the jokester who once placed a bet with a colleague over the existence of a black hole; and the young husband and father striving to gain a foothold in the world of academia.

Hawking and the University College Oxford Boat Club.

The book's cover shows a splendid picture of the members of University College Boat Club doing the sort of things that students do when you point a camera at them. Hawking is shown at the centre of the action. His website has an extract from Chapter 3 of My Brief History entitled ‘Oxford’. It contains a short, self-deprecating account of his coxing career plus some wonderful high resolution photographs (click on the screen icon to enlarge). Page 32 has the famous picture of Hawking coxing ‘the rugby boat’ in his boater and blazer. The next page has a study entitled ‘the Boat Club at rest’ showing some serious looking young men in suits and ties on the college barge displaying a recently acquired trophy. However, it is the pictures on pages 34 and 35 taken in 1961 or 1962 entitled ‘the Boat Club at play’ that are the real joy. They show what in those more innocent times may have been called ‘gay young undergraduates’ striking various poses. Some hold that ‘the 60s’ began in 1963, ‘between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP’ and certainly most of the young oarsmen pictured look as though they could have come from the 1940s or 1950s – though there is some evidence of the influence of the ‘beat generation’ on one or two of them.

The University College Boat Club was founded in 1827 and its website has a very good history section compiled by the College Archivist, Dr Robin Darwall-Smith. It has some wonderful pictures (again click on the screen icon to enlarge) starting in with the Torpids First Eight of 1862. Despite the seemingly odd mixture of top hats, boaters and bowlers, there are none of the undergraduate affectations displayed by Hawking’s later group. The archive pictures conclude with ULBC’s most famous cox (though possibly least distinguished boat) ninety-nine years later. Time is, indeed, brief.

Book Review: The Boys in the Boat

The heroes in the boat: (from left) Stroke Donald ‘Don’ Hume (1915-2001), 7 Joseph ‘Joe’ Rantz (1914-2007), 6 George ‘Shorty’ Hunt (1916-1999), 5 Jim ‘Stub’ McMillin (1914-2005), 4 John ‘Johnny’ White (1916-1997), 3 Gordon ‘Gordy’ Adam (1915-1992), 2 Charles ‘Chuck’ Day (1914-1962), Bow Roger Morris (1915-2009) and, kneeling, Cox Robert ‘Bobby’ Moch (1914-2005).

Although rowing – or as it is called in America, crew – is a minor sport compared to other team games, each and every year sees a new book published about this aquatic activity. Nevertheless, it is rare to be able to add a new title to the niche genre of rowing history. Amongst the authors and the books which are still in print in this group, and worth mentioning here, you will find: David Halberstam’s The Amateurs (hardcover 1986; paperback 1996), Daniel Boyne’s two books The Red Rose Crew (2000; 2005) and Kelly: A Father, A Son, An American Quest (2008, 2012), and Christopher Dodd’s Pieces of Eight (published in Great Britain, 2012).

To this small, but splendid collection of authors and their books can now be included Daniel James Brown and his The Boys in the Boat – Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Viking, 2013, 404 pp.). As the subtitle tells, Brown’s book is about the U.S. eight with coxswain who went to fight for honour and glory at the 1936 Olympic rowing regatta on lake Langer See at Grünau, outside Berlin, where these young American oarsmen became Olympic champions by a slim margin.

All Americans love a tale about underdogs, especially if the underdogs are Americans, and at the center of this compelling story is Joe Rantz, one of the boys in the crew, whom Brown met at his neighbour Judy Willman’s house; Judy was Joe’s daughter, and when Joe was diagnosed with cancer, he lived with her his remaining days. Listening to the old oarsman’s account, Brown realized that the story of these Olympians is not as commonly known as, for example, Jesse Owens’s, whose four golds at the Berlin Games gave the Nazis’ ideology of the Aryan race superiority a severe dent.

The sons of farmers, fishermen and lumberjacks forming the Husky crews are getting a little different ‘workout’ sawing through a big log of Douglas spruce. Photograph from 1929. Courtesy of Thomas E Weil.

While rowing back in the 1930s was regarded as a sport for the privileged few, Joe and his oarsmen comrades at the University of Washington were the sons of farmers, fishermen, and lumberjacks. Although Brown’s narrative is about all the boys in the boat – their way from freshmen on Lake Washington to Olympians on Langer See, a three- to four-year voyage not always on an easy, straight course  – it is the human story of young Joe’s struggling life of Dickensian dimensions during the Depression that grabs hold of the reader.

Assisting the Husky crews was a remarkable group of rowing men: University of Washington’s head coach Al Ulbrickson, known as “the Dour Dane,” freshman coach Tom Bolles, who later became a successful coach for Harvard crews (both on the right); and boat builder George Pocock, the Englishman whose father had built boats for the “wet-bobs” at Eton College. George Pocock also helped to coach the Husky boys, using the same techniques he used to build the best racing shells in America: a philosophical approach and a sharp eye. It is as Brown writes, “Great crews are carefully balanced blends of both physical abilities and personality types.”

However, when Ulbrickson had found the perfect combination of nine men, they still had to beat the arch-rival crew from California-Berkeley, coached by Ky Ebright, whose previous crews had represented the U.S. in both the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games. Then Joe and his mates had to overpower the “snobs” from the East Coast at the 1936 IRA Regatta at Poughkeepsie – this was a time when an incredible number of 90,000 spectators gathered on the shores of the Hudson to watch the races. In the Pocock-built Husky Clipper, the Huskies prevailed (told by the author in a beautiful race report). *Later winning the Olympic Trials in Princeton, it seemed the Washington crew had their trip to Berlin in the bag, but not before good people in Seattle and in the boys’ hometowns managed to raise $5,000 in a few days for their tickets.

In their first heat at Grünau, the Americans managed to keep the British eight at bay, forcing them to a repechage heat, an extra race which they won, taking them to the final, where strong crews from Germany and Italy were all game for the Olympic medals. It was the British boat, stroked by the eminent “Ran” Laurie and coxed by Noel Duckworth – two of my rowing heroes – that the Huskies feared most. In the final race, in front of Der Führer and other Nazi dignitaries, the Husky Clipper sneaked up from the far back of the field to snatch the gold medal, leaving the silver medal to the Italians and the bronze medal to the Germans, and the Brits with nothing, coming in fourth.

Daniel James Brown

Daniel James Brown is a clever author and it is a grand story he is telling. He is not a rower himself, which is probably good, because he has made sure that a non-rower can easily follow the Husky boys when they catch a crab or feel the pain like they do after a hard race on Lake Washington. On the other hand there are also some oddities in his narrative. About Ran Laurie, Brown writes:

In the British boat, Ran Laurie dug furiously at the water. He was still relatively fresh. He wanted to do more. But like many British strokes in those days, he was wielding an oar with a smaller, narrower blade than the rest of his crew – the idea being that the stroke’s job was to set the pace, not to power the boat. With the small blade, he avoided the risk of burning himself out and losing his form.

No, I do not think that Laurie, one of the great Cambridge strokes before the Second World War, had a more narrow blade than the rest of his crew – honestly, it would not be cricket! Oarsmen might have individually adjusted riggers, of course, but to suggest that an English top-notch stroke during this time should not ‘power the boat’ is plain wrong. Another thing where Brown goes astray – and he comes back to it over and over again – is the crews’ starting process: that Bobby Moch, the Huskies’ cox, would raise his hand to show that his crew was ready to race, while I think that the start then was as it is to this day, the cox has his/her hand up to indicate to the umpire at the start that the crew is not ready to start. Take a good look at Oxford’s and Cambridge’s coxes at the start of the Boat Race on the Thames next time. The weather conditions and the stream are making it hard for the person in the stake boat to hold the boat. The cox is having his, or her, hand up while the bow pair is straightening up the boat to the coxswain’s liking. Rowing historian Tim Koch, a frequent HTBS contributor, writes in an e-mail about hands up or down at the start: ‘If you have not got both hands on the rudder strings, you are not ready. This is especially true in the old days of big rudders when rudder strings were very loose and had to be held “tight”.’ There are some other peculiarities of Brown’s in the book, but my points are made. However in the grand scheme of things Brown has done a good job, and we rowers are always grateful when our sport gets exposure in whatever media it might be.

It was evident, even before the book came out in June, that the book would be a success: the film rights have been bought by the Weinstein Company (see here), and when I met Brown at an event this summer, he told me that a screenwriter is working on the script, although he could not give me any details at that time.

Whenever the movie is coming out, I will line up outside the movie theatre, ready to be enchanted.

*This article was updated on 20 August, reflected the information given in Comment No. 1 by Richard A. Kendall.

A History of Collegiate Rowing in America

American rowing historians and rowing history buffs alike are very proud to announce that rowing – that is, the sport of rowing – was the first collegiate sport in the USA. Modelled after the famous Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, which was raced the first time in 1829, the first Yale-Harvard race took place at Lake Winnipesaukee in 1852, with a victory for Harvard. In 1852, Harvard and Yale were not the only colleges with a rowing programme; Dartmouth started its programme in the beginning of the 1830s and students at Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.) formed a rowing club in 1849 (with Yale in 1843 and Harvard in 1844).

Although, rowing clubs were formed outside the colleges, it was collegiate rowing that was the firm base whereupon American rowing was resting for many years. It was, for example, college and university crews that represented the USA (and took the gold medals) in the eights in the Olympic Games from 1920 to 1956. Today there are more than 300 rowing programmes in America, Daniella K. Garran writes in her A History of Collegiate Rowing in America, which was published last autumn by Schiffer Publishing. As with most of Schiffer’s books, A History of Collegiate Rowing in America has a generous amount of beautiful illustrations, well, 142 to be exact, and with that it is a real coffee table book. With all these hundreds of rowing programmes widespread over the country, it is impossible to mention them all in a book close to 200 pages. Instead, it is the usual colleges and universities that are counted up with brief historic notes; in addition to those already mentioned: Bowdoin, Penn, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Navy, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Washington, Cal-UW, Stanford, UCLA, to only mention a few. Garran, whose own rowing career was as a successful coxswain at Connecticut College in New London, Conn., in order to cover as much ground, or should I say, water, as possible has special chapters on famous collegiate rowing coaches (Courtney, Ebright, Gladstone, Nash, Parker, Teti, Ulbrickson, etc., etc.), Head races, Championships, Sprint races, Women’s rowing, Lightweight rowing, Conferences, and also regattas abroad: Henley in England and Canadian Henley, Under 23 Championships, World University Championships and, of course, the Olympics. Other text bites are rowing equipment and rowing term glossary.

The ambitious author has really tried to cover all the bases, not merely by giving us a lot of the history of the different clubs, coaches, crews, and lists of all rowing programmes, etc., she has also added ‘oddities’ that for non-rowers might seem peculiar: ‘shirt betting’ and ‘cox tossing’. Clearly, Garren’s work is meant to be a reference book for those high school students – rowers and non-rowers – who aspire to row at a college or university, but also to steer the post-collegiate student in the right direction when he or she just have to continue to mess around in boats after college graduation, at a club or on a high level as the World Championships or the Olympics.

A History of Collegiate Rowing in America is indeed a well-written book and with its many marvellous photographs, most of them in colour – personally I am happy to see some photographs from the National Rowing Hall of Fame in Mystic, Conn., – it is a grand looking book. However, I cannot help wishing for more interference from an editor. Some of the ‘chapters’ or sections are bits and pieces that now look thrown in at the back of the book in lack of better spots and meaning. I found the rowing songs and poems in the book tremendously interesting, except without any deeper descriptions or analysis of these texts, what is the point of publishing them?

I also wished that Garren and/or the publisher would have contacted one or all of the three renowned American rowing historians, Tom Weil, Bill Miller or Peter Mallory, for a quick read-through of the manuscript. I am sure they would have spotted some of the unfortunate historical mistakes and errors that have sneaked into the book. To mention some: Hiram Conibear, coach at University of Washington, did not die in a car accident, he died from falling down from a tree (Garren has it correct in one place of the book but wrong in another – the question still remains: was it a plum, an apple or a pear tree?); the Syracuse coach Gus Eriksen was not a native of Sweden, he was born in Seattle, but could speak Swedish because his parents came from the Swedish-speaking island of Åland, which belongs to Finland; the first Americans to race at Henley Royal Regatta where not from Columbia College in 1878, it was E. Smith of Atlanta RC (New York) in 1872 in the Diamonds; and R.C. Lehmann did not write his Rowing (1897) together with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, the later was the editor of the book (but C.M. Pitman and Guy Nickalls wrote a chapter each in the book). While Garren writes that ‘one cannot help but compare Doggett’s Coat and Badge [Race] to some of the long-storied cup races in American collegiate rowing or to centuries-long traditions such as the Harvard-Yale race’, I have to confess that I do have a hard time comparing any American amateur collegiate rowing race with an English sculling race for professionals which was rowed for the first time close to 70 years before the USA got its independence.

Whereas these historical hiccups are slightly irritating, the over-all view of this book is positive. No one can deny that Daniella Garran loves the sport of rowing and that she wants to share it with as many people as possible. I wish her luck in this endeavour.

New Book: Rowing In Britain

Afraid of getting a bad reputation after Tim Koch writing on Saturday about a new ‘bonkbuster’ on rowing, HTBS feels that we immediately have to write a review about a real book about rowing. Luckily, just the other day Julie Summers’s lovely little 56-page book Rowing in Britain landed on the editor’s desk.

HTBS briefly mentioned Summers’s book in a post on 8 May in a discussion about the wonderful cover of the book Pieces of Eight by Chris Dodd. In that post I feared that both Dodd’s book and Summers’s book should end up with the same artwork on the cover. So is not the case. Instead, Summers’s Rowing in Britain has a beautiful lithography by Maurice and Jacques Goddet, published in Les Jotes du Sport (Paris, 1932) – see above.

Despite that Summers’s book only has 56 pages, she manage to get a lot of history and information in on rowing and sculling in, if not Britain, so at least England (although, Peter Haining and Katherine Grainger, both from Scotland, are mentioned). The author has chapters on competitive rowing, amateurs v. professionals, the Boat Race, Henley Royal Regatta, Women’s rowing, and Olympic rowing. If you have read any books on these subjects you are not likely to find anything new in Summer’s well-written book, but you will find quite a few grand old and new photographs, and prints, paintings, and more. Summers has also manage to throw in some of the latest champions and some new ‘things’: Katherine Grainger (2011 World Champion in the double sculls), Adam Freeman-Pask (2011 Wingfield Sculls), and a new cup at 2012 Henley Royal (Junior Women’s Quadruple Sculls), and a special text about ‘eating and training’ which is an interesting read.

There are some minor misprints and errors here and there, which is a pity. (Dick Southwood is Southworld in the book; some rowers are missing in the Index; Geoffrey Page was not a historian of London RC, etc.) But never mind.

This is, indeed, a nice little book to give away to non-rowing and rowing friends, to the girl-friend or the boy-friend who wonder what on earth you are up to out on the river, to your local library (because it lacks books on rowing), because it’s soon the Olympics and you still don’t know the difference between sweep-oar rowing and sculling (shame on you), etc.

Rowing in Britain is sold both in Great Britain, in the USA, and Canada. Buy it!

HTBS Literary Supplement

Tim Koch writes,

HTBS reviews many different types of rowing literature, everything from instruction manuals to historical research, from children’s stories to biographies, from poetry to prose. It has, however, been remiss in exploring the world of what the British call ‘the bonkbuster’* – until now.

This month saw the publication of Cox by ‘Kate Lace’.

The publishers, Arrow Books, say:

Sex, glamour and sporting prowess…what more could a girl want?! Cox is a fun, sexy and fast-paced novel about what really goes on behind the scenes of one of Britain’s most successful Olympic sports…

Meet the members of St George’s Boat Club:
Dan – dark and brooding, he has to work day and night to achieve his dream of rowing in the London Olympics.
Rollo – rich and arrogant, when he’s not rowing he spends his time seducing women and spending money.
Amy – a brilliant cox who catches the eye of both Dan and Rollo.

In a boat Dan and Rollo row perfectly together, but on land they despise each other. So with the addition of Amy to the mix, sporting behavior is the last thing on their mind.

May the best man win? Not a chance.

From Henley Regatta to the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, and finally to the biggest race of their lives, their determination to settle old scores threatens to capsize everyone’s plans.

The Times Literary Supplement has yet to review Cox but here are some other evaluations:

‘Sexy and fun, this addictive book will keep a smile on your face all day…… oar-some!’ Fabulous Magazine.

‘This fun, steamy story is a perfect read in the lead up to the Games’. Closer Magazine.

‘Just the right amount of posh and sex to make it a worthy bonkbuster...’  Heat Magazine.

 The late lamented ‘Tideway Slug’ parodied this sort of thing a long time ago – assuming that you can parody the already ridiculous.

*(bonkbuster: (slang) a popular novel involving frequent explicit sexual encounters, normally in a contemporary setting. Wiktionary.)

Cyril Power’s ‘The Eight’

What I did not mention yesterday in my review about Chris Dodd’s entertaining new book, Pieces of Eight, is the ‘book’ itself. What I mean by ‘book’ is not the content – which, again, is brilliant – it is instead how the book looks, its binding, format, cover, and lay-out. As an old book editor/ publisher, I am not only interested in the content of a book, I would like it to look nice, too. The publisher of Pieces of Eight is the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames. It is, if I have counted correctly, the museum’s third published rowing book after Tom Weil’s Beauty and the Boats (2005) and Peter Mallory’s The Sport of Rowing (2011), and it is going to be interesting to see if there are any other books on rowing coming from the museum in the near future.

What I like with Dodd’s book is its format. It is a paperback, but it still has a book cover with flaps. The font is easy to read with a good lay-out. However, while I demand an index in a book like this, the index in Pieces of Eight is almost impossible to read despite my new reading spectacles.

But what I really love is the cover – ‘The Eight’ from 1930 by the British artist Cyril Power (1872-1951). According to material from the auction house Bonhams in London, which rowing historian Tom Weil has forwarded to me, Bonhams writes that “‘The Eight’ shows a racing crew during trials for the Head of the River on the Thames. Power drew it looking down on the boat from Hammersmith Bridge. With its dramatic sense of energy, ‘The Eight’ is one of Power’s most sought after works and the print was in excellent condition.” The ‘print’ mentioned in the text from Bonhams was sold by them last July for £59,520! Read more here. According to Weil only 50 copies were printed of Power’s ‘The Eight’. So, if you have a copy of this print laying about, dust it off and run immediately over to the nearest Bonhams office.

USA cover?

U.K. cover?

Looking at the website of the publishing company Shire Library, it seems that they are also going to use ‘The Eight’ for one of their books which is coming out this summer. Writer, historian, and rower Julie Summers’s book Rowing in Britain has it on its cover. Read more about Summers’s book here, and read her Newsletter about the book here. A little confusing is that Shire Library’s distributor in the USA, Random House, is showing a completely different cover for the book on their site. That looks nice, too, though…*

*Here is an update regarding the cover of Summers's book: it will not be the same as the one on the cover of Dodd's book, however, at this point of time, there are no certainties that it will be the one that Random House has on their site either. (Updated 9 May, 2012)

The Tenth Man

I have admired Chris Dodd’s writing on rowing for three decades. I have followed his writing in The Guardian and later his short stint at The Independent. For years I subscribed to ARA’s magazine Regatta, which was founded by Dodd, giving Great Britain at the time two quality rowing magazines as Rowing already existed, published by the boat building company Aylings – nowadays ARA is called British Rowing and its magazine Rowing & Regatta. And of course, I have read all of Dodd’s brilliant rowing books: Henley Royal Regatta (1981), The Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race (1983), Boating (1983), The Story of World Rowing (1992), Battle of the Blues: The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race from 1829 (ed. with John Marks; 2004), and Water Boiling Aft: London Rowing Club, the First 150 Years 1856-2006 (2006).

Chris Dodd

When Dodd began his career as a rowing correspondent in the beginning of the 1970s, he joined a small group of outstanding rowing journalists, to mention the maybe most famous ones: Dickie Burnell, Desmond Hill, Geoffrey Page, Jim Railton, and John Rooda. Dodd is the only one left of these gentlemen of the rowing press, and today he has to be regarded as the doyen of rowing writers and historians. Nowadays, he is writing for the electronic rowing publication Rowing Voice, which he co-founded, and since 1997 he is the curator and historian at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, a beautiful institution he also co-founded.

With this background, or should I write, firm base to stand on, Dodd is highly qualified to pen the story about how British rowing rose from pure misery to once again have crews standing on the medal podiums at the World Championships and Olympic Games. His new book is called Pieces of Eight: Bob Janousek and his Olympians, which was published in March, and it splendidly tells the tale of a forgotten era of British rowing. It might be hard for rowing people these days to understand how our time’s greatest rowing nation, which ‘invented’ modern rowing in the beginning of the 1800s and which has fed rowing giants like Sir Steven Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent, had a two-decade-long ‘down period’. From after the Olympic Games in 1948 to the beginning of the 1970s (with the exception of an Olympic silver in the coxless four in 1964) British rowing had been without any medals and barely made it to the finals in the World Championships and Olympic regattas.

After the end of the 1960s when British rowing had hit rock bottom, ARA decided to do something drastic: invite a coach from Prague, who had Olympic bronze medals as a member of the Czech eights in Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964, to organise and guide the national teams and to educate the coaches who trained the crews, and to write the first ARA coaching training manual. His name was Bohumil Janoušek and he arrived in London in October 1969. Besides his Olympic rowing medals, he had two more key attributes in his personal baggage “that would serve him well in the hide-bound and divided rowing society that he had parachuted into” Dodd writes, “He had a degree in sports science from Charles University in Prague. And he spoke no English.”

Of course, not everyone liked or approved that help was coming from the outside, especially not some of the coaches from the old system with ‘private navies’. It was difficult for a coach to train a crew which had members from different clubs, which Bob Janousek, the name he took in England, soon discovered when he went to coach the national eight that had oarsmen from Leander and Thames Tradesmen. There was a huge difference in styles and techniques whether the rowers came from Cambridge, Leander or Tradesmen. Nor did the oarsmen understand how to row at a steady rate for 20 minutes; in the beginning they all rowed their hearts out and totally collapsed after 9 minutes. Janousek had brought with him some coaching ideas from Karl Adam of the Ratzeburg Rowing Academy, but it was not easy to apply them to the British scene.

Janousek, cover of Rowing 1975

At first, the Czech coach kept his distance from the national crews, allowing their coaches to train the different boats, but no British crew managed to reach the A-finals at the 1970 World Championships at St Catherines, the 1971 European Championships at Copenhagen, and the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich (exception of a fifth place by a Leander double). As Janousek had decided to stay in Britain with his family and thereby disobeying the Czech rowing government body to come home, he did not go to the 1973 European Championships which were held in Moscow – with the Cold War lingering about, as a ‘defector’ it was not likely that he would be allowed to go back to Britain.

In September 1973, Janousek decided to take a more active role as the National coach and sent out a letter to a selected group of oarsmen inviting them to join the National Squad which was going to be personally coached by him. He ended his letter by writing “I cannot promise you medals, even though this is what we shall try for, but I can promise that it will be worth the effort.” None of them, including Janousek, knew how hard the road was going to be.

At the first international regatta for the newly formed National team of oarsmen from Leander and Tradesmen at Mannheim, Germany, in June 1974, they were rowing in a coxless four and a coxed four, each crew mixed between the clubs and with a nervous rivalry crawling outside their skin. After their repecharge heat the men in the coxless four suddenly started a fist fight within (!) the crew. In the mini bus back to their barracks Janousek tried to cool down his crews. In his broken English he said, which also underlined how bad British rowing was at the time: “It’s very important we don’t start to argue with each other. Keep calm guys, nobody expects you to win – you are bloody English. The English never win anything.”

While Janousek’s oarsmen kept on struggling within the crews, with their foreign coach, and with their different styles, at least with the Czech coach came structure to their training both on the water and on land. Janousek was also constantly present, and without the oarsmen’s knowledge he was molding them into competitive crews. At the 1974 World Championships in Lucerne, the only thing Janousek told his eight, when they went out to row in the final, was: “enjoy yourselves”. Despite a good start, the British eight with L. D. Robertson, W. G. Mason, J. Clark, D. L. Maxwell, H. P. Matheson, T. J. Crooks, J. C. Yallop, stroke F. L. Smallbone, and cox P. J. Sweeney were last at the 500-metre mark, but they passed West Germany at 750 metres. They had a ‘big burn’ at 1,100 metres when they got closer to the rest of the field. Then cox Sweeney began talking the crew through the other crews, moving past the East Germans, the Russians, and close to the finish line, the New Zealanders. The British eight never managed to over-come the U.S. crew, but to everyone’s surprise Janousek’s oarsmen took a silver medal, and it was also a big surprise that the Americans took the gold, both these crews beating the East Germans, Russians, and the mighty crew from New Zealand, who had done so brilliantly the last couple of years.

Next year’s World Championships were held in Nottingham, and the coxed four (R.J. Ayling, Crooks, Matheson, R. C. Lester, and cox Sweeney) took a fourth place as did the coxless four (Mason, Clark, Robertson, and Yallop), while the double sculls (M. J. Hart and C. L. Baillieu) took a bronze medal repeating their position both at the European Championships in 1973 and the World Championships in 1974. The 1975 results were not as good as Janousek and his oarsmen wanted especially on their ‘home waters’, but they quickly had to switch focus on the following year’s upcoming big event, the Olympic Games in Montreal.

Bob's Boys in 1975: Lester, Matheson, Clark, Yallop, Aylings, Sweeney, Crooks, Robertson, Manson, and Janousek.

When the Brits arrived at the Olympic basin at Isle Notre-Dame, Montreal, not only did they have the ‘old’ Empacher eight which had served them well, but also the Carbon Tiger, a much lighter boat made of composite plastic and carbon fibre. The new boat worried a lot of their competitors, but while it was very fast on the water it had issues with the rigging and shoulders, and at the end it was not used. Maybe Clark put it best: “If I win a gold medal I don’t want a bastard telling me it was because of the boat.”

Those of you who know your Olympic rowing history remember that Great Britain did not take a gold medal at the Olympic rowing regatta in Montreal, the championship title went to East Germany, with the British boys coming in as a very good second boat. Or did the British actually win? To this day, some in the crew, which on that day was: Robertson, Smallbone, Clark, Maxwell, Matheson, Crooks, Yallop, Lester, and Sweeney, still think that they were the non-cheating boat, the clean crew, which was not on any drugs. Rumour had it that the East Germans were on ‘something’, pills or got some ‘vitamin’ injections by their coach before a race. At the end of the book, Dodd brings up the question and debates whether it would be possible. Nothing was ever proved, so the question still is unanswered, and will probably never be answered.

In his ‘foreword’ Chris Dodd writes that Pieces of Eight is not a book of rowing history, but a ‘collective memory of a coach, a group of oarsmen, and a reporter who followed them in their day. It is therefore, a memoir, not a history.’ Well, whatever you would like to call it, a memoir, a rowing biography, a history book, it is a well-written, damn good book! And it has an important story to tell, as one man, single handedly torn down the social barrier, which only a foreigner could do who did not understand the English class system. After the 1976 Olympic Games Bob Janousek handed in his resignation as the National team coach. His next job was as a ‘baker’, or that is at least what he called himself when he joined John Vigurs to start their boat building company Carborcraft. When the company failed, Janousek established his own company Janousek Racing, which became world-known. What happened to Janousek’s oarsmen? Many of them continued to be involved in rowing in some way, some active rowers, coaches, or rowing advocates, and today some of them are Henley Stewards. They all think fondly of Janousek, he was, one of them said, “the tenth man in the boat”.

Dodd has used his interviews with everyone who was involved in the revival of British rowing at this time in a most effective way, allowing them to reflect and think back of their glory days as Janousek’s men. While it might not always work to have the objects of your book to move back and forth in time, I do not think there is a problem in Dodd’s book to have the oarsmen to ‘pop in’ in present time to leave comments and arguments if a thing was right or not.

Pieces of Eight: Bob Janousek and his Olympians is indeed a must-read, must-have book. If you would like to understand how British rowing has managed to reach its high level of today – when we are only weeks away from the Olympic Games in London where the British yet again will meet glory on the water – this book will tell you how it all started, how one man taught the ‘bloody English’ how to row again.

Order a copy of Chris Dodd’s Pieces of Eight: Bob Janousek and his Olympians, here.

Tomorrow on HTBS there will be a short piece about the beautiful artwork “The Eight” by Cyril Power which grace the cover of Dodd’s book.