I found a video from Penny Chuter’s archive featuring both Acer Nethercott and Sir Steve Redgrave from the BBC archives.
Timestamps
01:00 Explaining coxing to non-rowers
Rowing material recorded by Penny Chuter is on Mostyn Field’s YouTube channel where he’s digitising it for us to enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/mostynarc
A brief guide to coxing with Acer Nethercott from 2006.
Explaining rowing to non-rowers isn not straightforward. Robert Treharne-Jones made an observation – when you are describing a race it’s not about who is in the race, there’s a lot more “colour” what you can describe. This is to fill in a bit of time when the race isn’t very exciting,
03:00 A local regatta commentator
When you have school kids and their parents watching they are often seeing rowing for the first time. You will use similarly simple language to Acer’s description of coxing.
If you go to a national championships or World Championships the commentator can talk using more technical language – complex concepts. This is because the audience is different – it’s experienced fans of rowing. This audience will understand.
At the Olympic Games it’s more similar to your local regatta because you have a huge audience of people who know nothing about rowing
Acer Nethercott explains the role of the coxswain
05:15 Sir Steve Redgrave tells a joke
Gary Herbert was another British Coxswain who is also a commentator. He coxed the Searle brothers to a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in the coxed pair.
A few years ago I collected rowing tales because standing on a river bank, rowers will always tell stories.
07:30 Matt McQuillan’s story about Gary Herbert
He describes the river bank in Putney in London just before the Boat Race where he saw his friend Gary Herbert.
Get Rowing Tales books
https://link.amazon/B0ijwWQpV