Product Description

The story of the sporting event which shook Oxford University and its boat club in the harsh winter of 1986/7 when a group of Americans arrived hoping to put some steel into a Boat race crew still reeling from defeat at the hand of Cambridge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #214149 in Books
• Published on: 1990-02-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A well written true story of the infamous Boat Race mutiny.
This book delves into the feelings and actions in the preceeding year to the 1987 Boat Race. This book follows the life of two of Oxford's most well known people, Donald Macdonald and Daniel Topolski. I have to say that I could not put it down. I have read it three times more and every time still found it to be a great book. Full of betrayal, deceit and the English men that conquered it.

A gripping story of a mutiny in the Oxford boat race crew.
A classic sporting story, with heroes and villains. That the former are British and the latter American makes it particularly enjoyable.

A ripping story, breathlessly told, but "true"?
It is not easy to explain to anyone what the big attraction of rowing is, and this book mostly succeeds (see also The Amateurs). The author's (or at least Topolski's) passion for the big race is communicated well, and the book is full of entertaining anecdotes about previous Boat Race legends.

However, given that this claims to be a true story, the characters have an unsatisfying comic-book feel about them, and are barely recognisable from their real-life equivalents. The action is full of noticeable omissions in the interest of a nice straightforward story. There are heroic goodies and dastardly baddies, and the simmering anti-Americanism that is never far beneath the surface of much English journalism shines through.

Regardless of who did or said exactly what in 1987, there is an interesting debate to be had around creeping professionalism in one of the last truly amateur sports, around the lengths that the universities will go to win this race, and around the vicious spitefulness that successful rowers (particularly in Oxford) often seem to incite, but this book isn't it.