Customer Reviews

True Blue

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am puzzled that this book seems to have been taken out of circulation sometime in the last two years. It is now impossible to find it in any bookstore, and virtually impossible to find a new copy for sale anywhere online. I feel fortunate that I had bought my copy before the publishers froze their presses. Perhaps, it is deemed too sensitive in the Boat Race world to merit further propagation.

The book is written from the viewpoint of the Oxford Boat Club coach, Dan Topolski, who's had to deal with the tumultuous mutiny staged by the American rowers on his crew. His only ally was the club president, Donald MacDonald. The book paints the Americans as villains and prima donnas who could neither adapt to nor accept the harsh training practices and traditions of the Oxford Boat Club. Obviously, this book is highly partisan in its viewpoint, and has the agenda of attributing blame and responsibility for the mutiny amongst the American rowers, most of whom are still living and active in the rowing world.

Beneath the politics and the purpose of the book, however, it is still a worthwhile read. Topolski and his co-writer Robinson, do not write with a light trivial style. Topolski takes his statements seriously, substantiating them with systematic arguments that appeal by turns to logic, common sense, and the rugged traditions of elite rowing. He explains the psychology of rowing, of pain, of excellence, of teamwork, of self-sacrifice, with a passion and detailed understanding that can be quite exhilarating to read. When I was still active as a rower, I liked to underline key phrases in his book which I found to be extraordinarily motivating. Unlike "Assault on Lake Casitas" which is a macho book about a macho rower overcoming the odds, the prose of "True Blue" is very deliberate, very British, slightly ironic, sometimes moralistic, shorn of excessive testosterone, but always impactful. The Topolski-Robinson team is quite a remarkable marriage of sports wisdom/passion and writing sophistication.

I am sorry that the book is now almost extinct. I have a feeling that the American rowers indicted in the story may have rallied against it -- it is obviously biased but it is also quite convincing, making a devastating case against the American oarsmen. I do not know if the dispute is settled with any consensus in the rowing world, or whether the rowing world is still divided about whether the Americans were the cause of the unhappiness and scandal in the Blue boat. Apart from the political ramifications of the book and the agenda it advances, I have plenty of praise for its insights into the spirit of sport and rowing.

True Blue is probably one of my favourite books. Although some friends dislike it, this is probably due to their complete lack of knowlege about the sport, which does admittedly make up the bulk of the book. However, I do also have a few non-rowing friends who love the book, which has given them a real insight into both rowing and the university of Oxford. The book is very well written, by a man who was one of the central characters in this true life story. The story is incredibly gripping, full of tension, and very hard to put down once you've started it. Read this book, especially if you're a boatie, and give it to all your drybob friends to either put them off rowing for life, or inspire them to get interested in rowing themselves.

Every serious team sportsman should read this book. You will not be able to put it down. It is tremendously motivating and a moving story about self belief, hard work, and reward.

The writing is fair, actually caught a few typos, but the story is very very compelling drama. The build-up is excellent to the final race. You really feel as if you know the main characters.

The only good thing about this book is that it represents the views of one of the participants of the events in question. It is written from a disturbingly biased view and, at best, may represent a shift to modern training methods from the old traditional ways of training. I did find the "politics" of Oxford rowing interesting. It is too bad that we have no way of judging the veracidy of the author.

Picture this scene and try to imagine what it is all about. `A lone figure was standing up...balancing like a statue....His mighty arms were raised upwards to the sky, and his face stared in ecstasy into the heavens beyond....Donald Macdonald was alone with his God.' Was Mr Macdonald perhaps a survivor of the massacre of Glencoe? Had he routed the minions of Butcher Cumberland? Well, no. This Mr Macdonald had just won the annual Oxford/Cambridge boat race in 1987.

I have never been sure of the propriety of invoking the help of the Almighty in achieving victory in sport. Does He really tip the balance in favour of whoever prays hardest (assuming that both competitors have kept to the rules and put in equivalent amounts of effort)? That sounds to me like obtaining an unfair advantage. I quite agree that top-class sport is a serious business, but surely there comes a time when obsessiveness over it begins to seem just a trifle silly? Even if we let divine intervention take its own course (and I could think of more pressing priorities for it in 1987) does some - any - annual rowing competition really amount to a matter involving lifelong enmity? I have just read Dan Topolski's memoir of this eventful event with genuine interest and a sense of involvement. In all conscience it was quite a saga and the issues were such as he or anyone would have needed to face with proper seriousness. Nevertheless what kept springing irreverently to mind was a tale of dirty work behind the scenes in the preparation for the vicarage egg-and-spoon race in one of the Jeeves stories, and I experienced an increasing longing to have this narrative retold for me by P G Wodehouse.

The background was that Oxford, perennial underdogs in the boat race, had been coached to a string of victories by Topolski followed by a bad defeat in 1986. A gifted American in the 1986 crew saw salvation in bringing other gifted Americans to Oxford for 1987, and these showed determination to have things done their way rather than Topolski's. Topolski's main ally was the Oxford `president' (sc captain of the crew) Macdonald, and both were opposed with contempt by the new Americans. The imbroglio that followed centred round two matters - the training methods and the tactics used by the `mutineers' to get their own way. Topolski obviously tells it all his way, but he makes what seems a genuine attempt to be fair while remaining convinced that he had it right. As regards the training I am completely unable to judge of the issue. Topolski imposed a gruelling regime, and the Americans did not wish to be gruelled. As regards the `political' battle, Topolski depicts the Americans and their growing band of supporters as taking the stance `if you just capitulate there will be no problem.' How the other camp saw it I don't know, but the picture is at least a familiar one from similar battles in large organisations - a party taking this attitude and then encountering resistance typically acts the victim and alleges unreasonableness, perfidy and character defects to the other side whom it was trying to attack.

The American who set the process off was not the prime mover and shaker as it developed. That was another American, studying at Oriel College, and the epicentre of the shaking is referred to throughout as `the Oriel bar'. From my own considerable experience of that in the previous generation, I'd guess that any brimstonish plotting would have more likely taken place in the Oriel junior common room, the rooms of the various insurgents and the Bear Inn. Oriel was represented particularly strongly among the candidates for a place in the university boat, and to crown matters the headquarters of the crew was, coincidentally, Oriel Square just outside the college gates, so that Oriel came to have a significance for Topolski of something like Mordor.

The revolt grew and gained a large following, and Topolski's picture increasingly becomes one of the saintly Macdonald fighting unscrupulous and implacable opponents, finally winning first the tactical battle of procedures and then the 1987 boat race. The latter triumph was against all odds, as the American stars had been thrown overboard and what was largely an Oxford B crew defeated what appeared to be a particularly strong Cambridge outfit. Clearly, Topolski and Macdonald were justified by results, but the arguments still went on afterwards and the malcontents achieved a minor victory in the selection of the next president, although Topolski's appendix summarising their subsequent history has an unmistakable air of virtue triumphant from his point of view. His tone becomes more biblical as it all goes on, even involving latterly opposing factions from two redoubts of Catholic monasticism. As a closing vignette we hear a brief exchange between the Jesuit prophet of the angels and the organiser of the axis of evil who upbraids the former for being an American who spoke against the American side.

I have no reason to doubt Topolski's version by and large. What I don't really understand is how the revolt got itself so many adherents, although Topolski's simple explanation, namely that these didn't know what they were talking about, could be the simple truth of it. One slight disappointment, considering that Topolski is by career a photo journalist, is the photographs. With each twist and turn of the narrative, I tried to inspect the features of the protagonists, but the selection seems rather random. In particular one picture that ought to have been memorable, of a punch being thrown by a particularly upstanding Englishman at an American cox depicted throughout as odious, fails to depict that in any way I can see. The picture of the American who started it all off rowing in an Oriel boat also puzzled me until I found that he had returned after completing his Oxford course to provide coaching at Oriel, which had not been his college. The upshot was that the Oriel boat, on paper the strongest in Oxford, was knocked out in the first round of its next competition. I lament this from the point of view of Oriel, but I suppose they need to take care who they deal with or it will all end in tears.

No-one has managed to make the sport of rowing interesting and the film made it look like a petty sport. The whole story about Dan's way or the the high-way comes clean here. The book is a bit more of a ripping yarn, but if you are a true officianado then you should read Alison Gill's book "Yanks at Oxford" as all the facts a clearly here to be seen.

Dan dusts over the facts and this does the sport of rowing a dis-service.

I pray for the day when we have a real book which underlines our passion for the sport.

God Save the queen and the Jolly sport of rowing.

Fantastic I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone

and I got thoroughly personally embroiled in this tale of incredible determination on the Thames, which is the most fantastic place to row. As a rower I would recommend this especially to anyone who wouldn't mind a bit of extra motivation! Topolski man, you F---ING RULE!