Oxford and Cambridge: a friendly rivalry

The rivalry at a glance

• Teaching at Oxford is recorded as early as 1096. Source: Wikipedia, Oxford–Cambridge rivalry.
• Cambridge was founded in 1209. Source: Wikipedia, History of the University of Cambridge.
• The first men's Boat Race was held in 1829, and Oxford won it. Source: Wikipedia, The Boat Race.
• Women first raced in 1927, on Oxford's own stretch of the Thames, the Isis. Source: Wikipedia, The Boat Race; Cambridge University Boat Club.
• Men's Boat Race record, as of the 2025 race: Cambridge 88, Oxford 81, one dead heat. Source: Wikipedia, The Boat Race.
• Women's Boat Race record, as of the 2025 race: Cambridge 48, Oxford 30. Source: Wikipedia, The Boat Race.
• The first rugby Varsity Match was played in 1872 at The Parks, Oxford, and Oxford won it. Source: Wikipedia, The Varsity Match.
• Rugby Varsity Match record, following the 141st match in 2023: Cambridge 65, Oxford 62, 14 draws. Source: Wikipedia, The Varsity Match.
• The 2014 varsity punt race, held at Cambridge, was won by Oxford. Source: Wikipedia, Punt (boat).
• Virginia Woolf's 1929 essay is the first recorded use of “Oxbridge”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Source: Wikipedia, Oxbridge.

Running totals change with every fixture, so each is dated to the match or race named. Figures are as given in the cited Wikipedia articles at the time of writing.

How it started

The story begins in Oxford. Wikipedia notes teaching at Oxford from as early as 1096 and calls it the oldest university in the English-speaking world; Cambridge, founded in 1209, it calls the second-oldest. Source: Wikipedia, Oxford–Cambridge rivalry and History of the University of Cambridge.

Oxford likes to point out that Cambridge's own history article says the founding “mostly originated with an incident at the University of Oxford”: the town's secular authorities hanged two Oxford scholars after the death of a local woman, and, fearing more violence, scholars began leaving Oxford for Paris, Reading and Cambridge among other cities. In fairness, Cambridge already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, thanks to the monks of nearby Ely Cathedral, and enough scholars took up residence there to form, with those already in place, the nucleus of the new university. Source: Wikipedia, History of the University of Cambridge.

Dark blue and light blue

On the water and beyond, the two sides have their colours: Oxford in dark blue and Cambridge in light blue. In the Boat Race, members of both crews are traditionally known as “blues” and each boat as a “Blue Boat”.

Oxford's dark blue goes back to the first race in 1829: five members of the crew, including the stroke, were from Christ Church, then Head of the River, whose colours were dark blue. On the rugby field, the Varsity Match tells a similar story: in the first match in 1872 Oxford turned out in dark blue, as they do now, while Cambridge played in pink, changing to blue and white in 1876. Read more about Christ Church.

The Boat Race

The tradition was started in 1829 by Charles Merivale of St John's College, Cambridge, and his school friend Charles Wordsworth of Christ Church, Oxford. Cambridge challenged Oxford to a race at Henley-on-Thames, and Oxford won easily. The annual race now covers 4.2 miles (6.8 km) of the Thames from Putney to Mortlake. Women first raced in 1927, on Oxford's own stretch of the Thames, the Isis, and since 2015 the women's race has shared the men's day and course.

As of the 2025 race, Cambridge has won the men's race 88 times to Oxford's 81, with one dead heat. In the women's race, Cambridge has won 48 times to Oxford's 30. Cambridge has led the men's tally since 1930 and the women's since 1966; the record stands as it stands.

Oxford has its moments on the river. In 1987 Oxford won by four lengths, despite Cambridge being favourites, and the narrowest winning margin in the men's race, excluding the 1877 dead heat, is one foot, achieved by Oxford in 2003. The Oxford men's reserve crew is named Isis, after the stretch of the Thames that runs through Oxford. Source: Wikipedia, The Boat Race. First women's race: Wikipedia, Cambridge University Boat Club.

Other Varsity fixtures

The rugby union Varsity Match began in 1872 at The Parks, Oxford, where the two sides played a 20-a-side version of the game and Oxford won the inaugural meeting. Today the University Parks is a place to walk; in 1872 it was a rugby pitch. Play has paused just for the World Wars and the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the 141st match in 2023, Cambridge leads with 65 wins to Oxford's 62, with 14 draws. The women's match was first played in 1988.

Oxford's 43–6 win in 2014 remains the fixture's biggest victory, and in 2015 Oxford made it six wins in a row, a record for either side. Cambridge have also put together runs of five consecutive wins three times. Source: Wikipedia, The Varsity Match.

Other sports have their own varsity fixtures too; the cricket University Match was first held in 1827, two years before the Boat Race. Source: Wikipedia, Oxford–Cambridge rivalry.

What each calls the other

“The other place” is a euphemism used in some academic institutions, and Wikipedia's article on the Oxford–Cambridge rivalry uses it for the sister university, noting that many academics have at some stage belonged to the “other place”. We use it here, with a smile, for Cambridge.

The same article records that in 2006 the Rugby Football Union advertised that year's Varsity Match with posters showing the number of Prime Ministers produced by the universities (Oxford 26, Cambridge 14), with the tagline “It's time to get even”. It adds that in modern times more politicians have come from Oxford than Cambridge, in part because Oxford offers Philosophy, Politics and Economics, sometimes nicknamed the “MP's degree”, and that in 2000 Cambridge academics said the Rhodes Scholarships gave Oxford an advantage through a higher profile in the United States. Source: Wikipedia, Oxford–Cambridge rivalry.

Punting: which end?

The two cities even punt differently. According to Wikipedia's article on the punt, in Cambridge most punters stand on the till (the flat end) and punt with the open end forward, while in Oxford they stand inside the boat and punt with the till forward. The Oxford tradition dates from before 1880. Students in both cities frequently proclaim that their own style is the correct one, to the extent that the till end is often known as the “Cambridge End” and the other as the “Oxford End”.

The same article notes that the Oxford river bottoms are generally muddier than in Cambridge, which makes a stuck pole more likely, and that the lower position, longer footway and greater grip of the open end are advantageous on such occasions. It reports a race at Cambridge in 2014 won by Oxford, and a first official varsity punt race for around thirty years in 2007, won by Cambridge. To try it yourself, see our punting guide.

Oxbridge

“Oxbridge” is a portmanteau of the two names. Thackeray's novel Pendennis, published in 1850, features a fictional Boniface College, Oxbridge, and the Oxford English Dictionary records Virginia Woolf's 1929 A Room of One's Own as the first use of the word. Thackeray's other coinage, Camford, has never achieved the same degree of usage. When written out, the pair are almost always “Oxford and Cambridge”, the order in which they were founded. One notable exception is Tokyo's Cambridge and Oxford Society, where the Cambridge Club was founded first and had more members than its Oxford counterpart when the two amalgamated in 1905. Source: Wikipedia, Oxbridge.