Today was the 154th Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race. I didn't go to London to watch the race but stayed at home and followed it on the telly. Oxford won!
The idea for a rowing race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge came from two friends - Charles Merivale, a student at Cambridge, and his Harrow schoolfriend Charles Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth), who was at Oxford.
On 12 March 1829, Cambridge sent a challenge to Oxford and thus the tradition was born which has continued to the present day, where the loser of the previous year’s race challenges the opposition to a re-match.
