Then & Now

Origins

The first Varsity Match took place at The Parks, Oxford on February 10th 1872 – one year after the formation of the RFU and the official banning of hacking and tripping in the game. Oxford played in their traditional dark blue but Cambridge appeared in pink, switching to their light blue and white stripes four years later. The inaugural fixture – a 20-a-side game - was won by Oxford by a goal to nil. (The teams adopted the 15-a-side format of rugby in 1875.)

Scoring

If the result above seems strange, the rules of scoring were somewhat confusing in rugby’s early years. Wins were determined by goals kicked rather than points or touchdowns. In the first match, Oxford scored two tries and one conversion but only the conversion (goal) counted. In the 1874/75 season, the only scores were two tries for Oxford but the result still counted as a draw. Even when points started to be awarded, the system could still be a little topsy-turvy. For example, points for a conversion weren’t added to a try. Instead, the conversion was awarded a greater number of points with the points for the try then subtracted from this amount. Same result but rather a long way round!

Trying Times

The key premise of the game, however, remains true to this day. In 1872, in order to have “a try” at kicking a goal between an opponent’s posts, a team had to touch the ball down over the opposition line. And that, obviously, is where the word ‘try’ comes from…

WLD

From 1872 to 2010, 129 Varsity Matches have taken place. The fixture was cancelled during the First World War (1914-18) and played ‘informally’ during WW11. (From 1939 – 1945 Oxford and Cambridge played each other twice a year on a home and away basis. These matches, however, are not recognised in the official results record.) To date Cambridge lead Oxford by 61 wins to 54 with 14 draws – the last one occurring in 2003. In points terms, Cambridge are also ahead by 1148 to 1042 – a gap of just 106. (For pedants, that’s an aggregate difference of only 0.8217054 points per match across the 129 encounters – it couldn’t get much closer!)