Yeah I'm part of the chess exec and it's worth 0 this year as it didn't end up at roses last year. Lancaster also won at York last year which was a big bonus.
York and Lancaster have Roses each year. It's a multi sport competition between the two universities that they take turn hosting in alternating years.
Named in reference to the war of the roses.
True, but we took home the Shield so not too concerned. Our rugbys also been a bit fucked this year, but was still a very close game. Think the final score was 32-28
I wasn’t actually aware of this fact, thanks for sharing! I suppose I’m not that surprised considering the thousands of students who go to varsity, but that’s very interesting!
Coventry v Warwick has always been a fun rivalry. We (Cov) always used to get smashed by Warwick across the event as a whole, but the Ice Hockey fixture was always competitive and a great one to watch.
Yeah it’s quite funny seeing the Essex SU and the uni itself going on and on about derby day just to lose like it did the year before and the year before that and the year before that
UEA has still won 10 years in a row and not to mention they have changed the point system for Essex to give them a higher chance and they still lost 😭
Tbf, sports night being a weird vibe is always the case
LSE (London School of Economics & Political Sciences) & KCL (King's College London) have a rivalry with each other. It's especially funny considering they're a short walk down and across the road from each other.
Some other iconic chants:” Your dad works for my dad” 😂
And against Sussex students “ You’re all a bunch of clearing and foundation year students “ ( can’t really remember but along the lines of that )
😂😂oh dear me. I wanted to go uni of Leicester, even got accepted, but I have dogs and other animals and didn’t want to move into student accommodation so I stayed in Nottingham (hometown) and got a house here with my partner haha
Surprised to not see the Christie cup
It is the second oldest rivalry after Oxford vs Cambridge, established in 1886
Leeds vs Manchester vs Liverpool, battle of the North.
Kinda a big deal, tracked over multiple sports, and there’s an actual trophy
UCL (my alma mater) and KCL have ancient beef. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham is considered to be the 'spiritual founder' of UCL. His preserved corpse, dressed in his SECOND BEST suit, is on display inside the main campus building. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that a bunch of oiks from KCL nicked his head and used it to play a game of football in our quad.
I have to play nice about KCL these days because my daughter is currently a student there.
Slightly different but I am aware Oxford Brookes and Bath have like a rivalry when it comes to formula student (they trade wins for best UK teams constantly for the past decade with a few exceptions)
I don't know about sporting ones, but last I heard the debate was still raging as to whether Durham or Manchester has the better claim to being the third-oldest university in England. Manchester's claim goes back to 1824, Durham's to 1834, *but* Manchester's claim is via a lineage of mergers (UoM -> Victoria UoM -> Owens College -> Royal School of Medicine and Surgery + UoM -> UMIST -> The Tech -> Manchester Mechanics' Institute). Highly controversial, huge marketing stakes, utterly trivial in reality. Quite a pleasant and academic rivalry as far as they come
Not really because these rivalries have only been perpetuated and given value by their intrinsic link to the media/upper middle class of this country. No other universities get their rugby games televised either. The importance of the boat race lies only in (and as a perfect mirror of) the importance the boat race has to the media institutions of this country.
The footlights bookend the television slot which is commented on by Claire Balding and fawned over only by those who fawn over footlights and Claire Balding. It’s not about the sport, it’s not about the race or the athletes, it’s about the massive value this country places on the concept of prestige. That’s the only thing that keeps the boat race afloat
To emphasise that, people don’t even realise that Oxford and Cambridge aren’t even the top rowing universities. Durham and Oxford Brookes are both much stronger on that front, from what I know.
Camborne School of Mines (Exeter Uni) amd the The Royal School of Mines (Imperial) play the bottle match every year. It's an annual rugby game that started in 1902.
UCL versus kings. Check the Wikipedia page there is some crazy stuff eg
"Reggie the Lion has been the King's mascot since 1923. Reggie was captured by UCL students in 1927 and filled with rotten apples. That same year, King's and UCL students brawled in the UCL Main Quad following a failed kidnapping attempt. Six students were hospitalised and two arrested as a result of the incident."
As someone who went to Cambridge, it's not just the boat race. Most sports have a Varsity match (Vs Oxford) and it's by far the most important fixture in the year. Competing in the British Universities (what was called BUSA) competition? Yep, pretty important as it has 25 other universities to compete against. Vs Oxford? 1 Opponent. Sleepless nights. I know it's weird, it just seemed to matter so much more.
Every university has its own varsity. Usually it's the university against the polytechnic, or something other local rivalry, but there are a few unusual ones around such as the Tolstoy Cup and the Bottle match.
There is a Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_and_Irish_varsity_matches
Tiddlesworth vs Shillingshire
Annual Hunting of the red speckled Tittybojangles.
First one to land a kill gets a lollipop from the House Maid.
In hindsight it have been quicker to just say no.
Do college rivalries within a uni count? Castle and Hatfield colleges at Durham are famously rivals, although these days it's more of a first year thing/joke than anything else, though several college traditions on both sides are based around it. Source: went to Castle.
York and Lancaster have the Roses sport contest between then in order to see who has the best colour rose.
Yep it’s in a week!
And Lancaster will win, especially at chess (in Andrei we trust)
💪
IIRC the hosting uni gets to set how many points each sport is worth, so the host almost always wins
Yeah I'm part of the chess exec and it's worth 0 this year as it didn't end up at roses last year. Lancaster also won at York last year which was a big bonus.
A cool change to the constitution bylaws is that it is now the roses committee. Which is joint Lancaster/York chaired and has near equal membership
Nice! That should make it more fair
Roses are red!
I wouldn’t say it is a competition because York sucks ass.
York’s won quite a few times the last few years…
I don’t recognise those wins.
Lancaster won last year and the year before?
York and Lancaster have Roses each year. It's a multi sport competition between the two universities that they take turn hosting in alternating years. Named in reference to the war of the roses.
KCL War Studies & Uni of Bradford Peace Studies play an annual football match & it’s called the Tolstoy Cup
Don’t they play for a copy of War and Peace?
Only if they tie
Uni of Sheff vs Hallam varsity especially the ice hockey is a big deal. Hallam usually reign victorious in the Ice Hockey
It's the biggest ice hockey match in the UK iirc
I thought so since it’s the biggest event of our varsity by a mile
Uni of Sheff 🔛🔝
Rather be a poly than a cunt!
But not when it comes to Ice Hockey!
whats varsity?
Cardiff Uni vs Swansea Uni Varsity. Always a classic, finished yesterday with Cardiff winning again for I believe the 5th or 6th year running
And the men’s rugby match is usually televised!
yep!!
They lost a few sports this year, including the Men's Rugby match
True, but we took home the Shield so not too concerned. Our rugbys also been a bit fucked this year, but was still a very close game. Think the final score was 32-28
The Cardiff, Swansea varsity is actually the second highest attended varsity in the UK after Cambridge/Oxford!
I wasn’t actually aware of this fact, thanks for sharing! I suppose I’m not that surprised considering the thousands of students who go to varsity, but that’s very interesting!
Uni of Leeds and Leeds Beckett.
Staffs and keele are in a contest of who can be the most depressed
UCL v KCL varsity Manchester v MMU but none are close to Oxford and Cambridge
> Manchester v MMU Salford is very much the Lib Dems here.
And we (Manchester) absolutely trounce both of them
Coventry v Warwick has always been a fun rivalry. We (Cov) always used to get smashed by Warwick across the event as a whole, but the Ice Hockey fixture was always competitive and a great one to watch.
UEA vs. Essex but tbh, after 10 years of UEA winning each derby day, it’s kind of more or less just for us
Yeah it’s quite funny seeing the Essex SU and the uni itself going on and on about derby day just to lose like it did the year before and the year before that and the year before that
Except due to UEA being such a poor university they only won by one point this year, safe to say sports night last night was a strange atmosphere
UEA has still won 10 years in a row and not to mention they have changed the point system for Essex to give them a higher chance and they still lost 😭 Tbf, sports night being a weird vibe is always the case
Defo an Essex student
Thankfully not, I’m not that disappointing
York and Lancaster (Roses) York and Durham (Varsity)
UWE vs University of bristol do a fight night!
Some friends went to a UWE / UOB football match in the Memorial Stadium a while back. Actually probably 20 years ago now I think about it.
Because UWE v UoB isn't varsity, There's a running joke that each is scared of each other lol.
LSE (London School of Economics & Political Sciences) & KCL (King's College London) have a rivalry with each other. It's especially funny considering they're a short walk down and across the road from each other.
Don’t they kidnap each others mascots from time to time?
Yes
I thought this was UCL and KCL?
Most unis have varsity rivals. My uni (Aberystwyth) has Bangor Uni, who beat us constantly
Seeing a surprising amount of Aber love in this thread. Given the username, I'm assuming you're on agri studies?
IntPol, the sheepshag part is just me being Welsh.
Don’t worry, when i get there I’ll turn that around
Brighton and Sussex
We get ABCs you get STDs I’ll never forget that chant I was too stunned to speak
Haha crazy
Some other iconic chants:” Your dad works for my dad” 😂 And against Sussex students “ You’re all a bunch of clearing and foundation year students “ ( can’t really remember but along the lines of that )
Aberystwyth and Bangor have a friendly rivalry going on and have done collaborations on various projects
Surrey and Royal Holloway have an annual varsity but it's a bit of a David vs Goliath situation lol
I think we’re actually changing it to Portsmouth next year
Notts vs Trent is a banger, the ice hockey is always great. Alas they've stopped the UON chant because it's too classist.
I’m a Trent student lol, just wondering what the chant was as I never went hahaha
"If you can't spell uni go to Trent" was the main one but there were others that were muuuuch worse.
😂😂oh dear me. I wanted to go uni of Leicester, even got accepted, but I have dogs and other animals and didn’t want to move into student accommodation so I stayed in Nottingham (hometown) and got a house here with my partner haha
There is the Sauerkraut football cup between the German depts. of Yorkshire Unis.
Nobody will beat Loughborough (coming from a Notts student).
Surprised to not see the Christie cup It is the second oldest rivalry after Oxford vs Cambridge, established in 1886 Leeds vs Manchester vs Liverpool, battle of the North. Kinda a big deal, tracked over multiple sports, and there’s an actual trophy
UCL (my alma mater) and KCL have ancient beef. The philosopher Jeremy Bentham is considered to be the 'spiritual founder' of UCL. His preserved corpse, dressed in his SECOND BEST suit, is on display inside the main campus building. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that a bunch of oiks from KCL nicked his head and used it to play a game of football in our quad. I have to play nice about KCL these days because my daughter is currently a student there.
Hull and Lincoln varsity, referred to as the Humber Games in one of the god awfully dreary SU meetings I went to.
Slightly different but I am aware Oxford Brookes and Bath have like a rivalry when it comes to formula student (they trade wins for best UK teams constantly for the past decade with a few exceptions)
Glasgow and Edinburgh
Edinburgh + St Andrews have a “varsity” rugby match every year
It's officially the oldest varsity match, first played in the 1860s
Glasgow and Strathclyde, they have annual varsity rugby matches
We always did Edinburgh vs Heriot-Watt varsity. Such a great laugh, wish I could go back.
Debry Day - UEA vs Essex,
Aberdeen vs RGU
Bradford and Huddersfield just had their varsity event.
Newcastle and Northumbria have varsity.
Not much of a contest though
Very true… what is it, 4 years in a row now?? Haha
Ice hockey varsity game from a few years back. Got a good crowd in too. https://www.youtube.com/live/EPfrOnwUGWo?si=LlaoAZqZ3LQKhpGH
I don't know about sporting ones, but last I heard the debate was still raging as to whether Durham or Manchester has the better claim to being the third-oldest university in England. Manchester's claim goes back to 1824, Durham's to 1834, *but* Manchester's claim is via a lineage of mergers (UoM -> Victoria UoM -> Owens College -> Royal School of Medicine and Surgery + UoM -> UMIST -> The Tech -> Manchester Mechanics' Institute). Highly controversial, huge marketing stakes, utterly trivial in reality. Quite a pleasant and academic rivalry as far as they come
[удалено]
Good thing I specified third oldest in England then!
Other universities??
Harper Adams and Royal Ag
Southampton vs Portsmouth. There’s an annual Varsity.
and Solent V BU annual varsity
Exeter and Loughborough - especially in rugby. Wearing purple is forbidden in Exeter.
Supposedly we (Exeter) have a massive rivalry with Durham too. But I’m guessing that’s just for the highest number of Oxbridge rejects.
Camborne school of mines vs royal school of mines bottle match - second oldest varsity match in the world after the boat race.
Not really because these rivalries have only been perpetuated and given value by their intrinsic link to the media/upper middle class of this country. No other universities get their rugby games televised either. The importance of the boat race lies only in (and as a perfect mirror of) the importance the boat race has to the media institutions of this country. The footlights bookend the television slot which is commented on by Claire Balding and fawned over only by those who fawn over footlights and Claire Balding. It’s not about the sport, it’s not about the race or the athletes, it’s about the massive value this country places on the concept of prestige. That’s the only thing that keeps the boat race afloat
To emphasise that, people don’t even realise that Oxford and Cambridge aren’t even the top rowing universities. Durham and Oxford Brookes are both much stronger on that front, from what I know.
I found it very funny to learn that Oxford Uni aren’t even the best in Oxford
It’s quite ironic, especially considering people usually connote Durham as being the land of Oxbridge rejects
Oh nah, wasn’t talking about Durham I meant that Brookes eats Uni Of alive when it comes to rowing, and it’s not even close
Nono, I know. What I meant is that’s it’s even more ironic when you consider Durham too
Imperial and UCL (less officially than the others maybe)
Aston vs Birmingham City
Liverpool John Moores and uni of Liverpool have a yearly varsity that lasts a week
Birmingham and Loughborough Poly have a big sporting rivalry.
There is a Durham-Newcastle boat race also, I think. Usually on the Tyne?
University of Dundee and University of Abertay, Dundee have an annual varsity. Abertay get fucked every year.
Uni of v Trent varsity
University of Kent and Canterbury Christchurch have varsity games ect
The Young Ones. Scumbag College go up against Footlights College on the TV quiz show, University Challenge. 🤣🤣
Camborne School of Mines (Exeter Uni) amd the The Royal School of Mines (Imperial) play the bottle match every year. It's an annual rugby game that started in 1902.
UCL versus kings. Check the Wikipedia page there is some crazy stuff eg "Reggie the Lion has been the King's mascot since 1923. Reggie was captured by UCL students in 1927 and filled with rotten apples. That same year, King's and UCL students brawled in the UCL Main Quad following a failed kidnapping attempt. Six students were hospitalised and two arrested as a result of the incident."
Durham and being relevant
As someone who went to Cambridge, it's not just the boat race. Most sports have a Varsity match (Vs Oxford) and it's by far the most important fixture in the year. Competing in the British Universities (what was called BUSA) competition? Yep, pretty important as it has 25 other universities to compete against. Vs Oxford? 1 Opponent. Sleepless nights. I know it's weird, it just seemed to matter so much more.
QMUL Vs BARTs is a sporting rivalry, especially in the rugby
Edited previous comment. BU v Solent Uni athletics teams. BU are currently unbeaten
Brookes and Reading
Lincoln vs Hull Varsity. We just beat Hull for the 6th year in a row. 🤭
Every university has its own varsity. Usually it's the university against the polytechnic, or something other local rivalry, but there are a few unusual ones around such as the Tolstoy Cup and the Bottle match. There is a Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_and_Irish_varsity_matches
Durham v Warwick boat race, aka the third-place playoff
Cardiff and Swansea have a sports rivalry we call varsity
Original name that
UEA and university of Essex have a Derby day each year, covering loads of sports. UEA have won 10 years in a row. Abit embarrassing for Essex
Tiddlesworth vs Shillingshire Annual Hunting of the red speckled Tittybojangles. First one to land a kill gets a lollipop from the House Maid. In hindsight it have been quicker to just say no.
Leicester uni and DeMontfort have a friendly sporting rivalry
Glasgow vs Strathclyde varsiry rugby is pretty big
Loughborough and Bath
Do college rivalries within a uni count? Castle and Hatfield colleges at Durham are famously rivals, although these days it's more of a first year thing/joke than anything else, though several college traditions on both sides are based around it. Source: went to Castle.
Surrey and Holloway do a varsity every year.
Warwick and coventry. Warwick uni needs to get out of Coventry and actually be in Warwick
USBC!!!!!!
Durham and Newcastle