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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating insight into rowing characters, 30 Jul 2001
By A Customer
This work is not purely an autobiography, nor a collection of biographies, nor a set of reminiscences, nor a chronological history of Cross's time in rowing. Instead it contains 14 chapters, each examining both a different facet of the sport and a different personality in rowing, making comparisons with his own experiences and the difficulties they both had to overcome.We get to see into the personalities and character making experiences of many of the usual suspects, e.g. Steve, Matt and Tim, plus the Searle brothers (each with their own chapter) and Andy Holmes, and also faces less known to the general public, e.g. Miriam Batten and coaches Harry Mahon and Mike Teti, and even names not well known to the rowing community at large such as Anita de Franz. There are a couple of detractions to this work. As a card-carrying Labour party member, Cross will start waving the Red Flag at the drop of a hat. Particularly annoying is that he has a long rant about the Moscow boycott claiming that such things have no effect, then goes on to justify the sporting boycott of South Africa. You can't have it both ways, Mr Cross. Appallingly incorrect spellings of many proper names used is totally inexcusable. Did Cross not give a proof copy to any of his rowing chums? Finally, the book in general seems to come right up to date to when it was published, and in the light of this it is inexcusable I think that the book does not carry the news of the death of Harry Mahon, and a fuller tribute to his influence. Would give it 5 stars, being a well thought out, well constructed and fascinating insight, but 4 stars only because of these gripes.
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