29 September 2024
By Chris Dodd
Patrick Sweeney, the cox of the British eight from 1973 to 1976, sent an invitation to his crew to watch a video on Sunday 8 September while sipping their favourite libation to toast their achievements of 50 years ago.
From 1948 to 1972 Britain slid down the international medal table from top to bottom. Then the visionary Czech coach Bob Janoušek formed a hand-picked national squad with the support of a selection board chaired by Mike Sweeney (no relation).
Pat Sweeney steered Janoušek’s eight to medals at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal before going on to coach Oxford, the Belgian national team and Kansas State’s women’s program. He asserts that GB’s outstanding Olympic and World medal revivalists can trace their DNA back to this 1974 World final in Luzern between New Zealand, USSR, USA, East and West Germany and Great Britain. The race ‘represents the birth of Britain’s national team,’ says the master coxswain.
And his message to his Montreal oarsmen – Lennie Robertson, Fred Smallbone, Jim Clark, David Maxwell, Hugh Matheson, Tim Crooks, John Yallop, stroke Dick Lester and coach Janoušek – is:
‘Yours are the shoulders they stand on today.’