11 October 2023

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch sees Oxford join Cambridge.

The Cambridge University Boat Club website explains how, slightly more than three years ago, three became one in Light Blue rowing:

On 1 August 2020, the three separate rowing clubs of the university – Cambridge University Boat Club, Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club, and Cambridge University Lightweight Rowing Club – became one new club for all men and women, openweight and lightweight, who represent Cambridge and race against Oxford. 

The history of the events explains why there were separate clubs. The Cambridge University Boat Club was founded in 1828. It issued a challenge in early 1829 to Oxford University to row a boat race and the first Boat Race was duly held that year. 

The first women’s Boat Race was almost 100 years later, after which CUWBC was formed (in 1941).

A new club, CULRC, was founded in 1974 to provide a lightweight men’s crew to race Oxford. When a lightweight women’s event was established in 1984, the new squad of lightweight women joined CUWBC. 

As one club, all resources are shared equally. Our ambition and our focus is unchanged: to beat Oxford on the Tideway. All the crews race over the same Championship Course, following the move of the openweight women in 2015 and the lightweight men and women in 2019.

As the OUBC Instagram post says, for the 2024 Boat races and beyond, Oxford will too run as one club, a home to the men’s and women’s openweights and lightweights. I can appreciate that the Dark Blues would probably not want to admit that the Tabs may have had a good idea, but it was against the zeitgeist for Oxford University BC (founded in 1839), Oxford University Women’s BC (1927), Oxford University Lightweight RC (1975) and Oxford University Women’s Lightweight RC (1984) to continue as separate entities. 

Another reason for change is the fact that, in the twenty races held since 2018, Oxford have only won two, the openweight men and the reserve men, both in 2022. Like all teams on a losing run, the Oxonians will be looking to try something different.

Following Cambridge’s amalgamations in 2020, I wrote:

Although organised rowing at Oxford predates that at Cambridge, the original CUBC first met on 9 December 1828, ten years before OUBC was formed. It was only in 1839 that the aquatic Oxonians organised themselves, worried that, while they had won the first Boat Race in 1829, they had lost the second in 1836 and the third three years later. 

At the present time, fairness and finance seems to make it inevitable that Oxford will once again follow Cambridge’s lead. 

Fairness means that, “separate but equal” is, famously, unacceptable and “separate but unequal” even more so. 

Finance may be an even stronger (if related) driving factor. Sponsorship of the Boat Race has been a problem for several years, even before the pandemic… Having to make cost savings and share out inevitably reduced staff and resources surely means amalgamation on the Isis under a smaller, unified coaching team must be the next logical move, even if it means rowing in Cambridge’s wake.

It must be admitted that the four Oxford clubs have been part of a shared financial agreement under the Topolski Fund for several years. The openweight men may end up a little worse off, but they will still be more cosseted than any other non-Oxbridge student rowers.

After 168 contests, the men’s openweight score is still remarkably close at Cambridge 86 wins, Oxford 81. When Cambridge achieved an unbroken run of wins between 1924 and 1936, and when Oxford did the same between 1976 and 1985, the losing side must have thought that their humiliation would never or could never end – but it always did.

The 78th Women’s Boat Race and the 169th Men’s Boat Race will take place on 30 March 2024.