Wednesday 29th April 2026
Blog Page 827

University ‘confident’ exams will be unaffected as external examiner resignations mount

Ryan Gould
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University ‘confident’ exams will be unaffected as external examiner resignations mount

Oxford has said that it is confident examinations will go ahead as scheduled next term, despite the mounting resignations of almost 700 external examiners nationwide.

External examiners across the country have been encouraged by the University and College Union (UCU) to resign from their posts at the 65 universities hit by strike action, including Oxford.

The move is designed to cause maximum disruption to the upcoming summer examination period, which could lead to the postponement of exams and students being unable to graduate on time.

The University said in a statement that it “usually makes around 600 external examination appointments each year. We have a process for the replacement of examiners who are not taking up appointments, whether through ill health or resignation.”

“We are confident that all exams can go ahead as scheduled next term,” it said.

The UCU has encouraged external examiners who have resigned from their post to fill in an online spreadsheet, which details their employing institution and examining role.

According to the spreadsheet, 20 examiners have resigned from their duties with Oxford, with six of the 20 being linked to the Faculty of English Language and Literature.

Professor Ros Ballaster, Chair of the English Faculty Board, told Cherwell: “Typically we require eight external examiners each year to complete assessment of our undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in English language and literature.”

“Without the contribution of external examiners we cannot complete our examining process. The timetable for submission and internal assessment should be able to continue as planned.

“We sincerely hope that the dispute will be resolved satisfactorily and in a timely fashion.”

One external examiner, who recently resigned from their duties with the English Faculty, told Cherwell that external examining “is work that is not very well paid for the amount of time that it takes up. It is largely done for reasons of goodwill and collegiality – the kinds of things which Universities UK (UUK) and intransigent vice-chancellors are risking in this action.”

In their resignation letter, the examiner wrote: “I have been honoured to serve in this capacity, and to see the tremendous work undertaken by Oxford undergraduates, Faculty members and teachers.

“However, the currently proposed changes to the terms of our working conditions will do more damage to them than anything that I have witnessed in my twenty years working in HE,” they continued.

“It is clear to me, as it is to so many in our profession, that UUK are conspicuously failing in their duty to represent the best interests of vice-chancellors, of universities, and of the people who work in them.”

As is common practice, Oxford appoints examiners from other universities to their examination boards to standardise assessments across the country.

Through agreeing to set questions, moderating exam results, and ensuring that assessment procedures are rigorous, Oxford’s guidance documents explain that they ensure “the soundness of the procedures used to reach final agreed marks”.

UCU branch representatives are set to meet at 11am to discuss members’ feedback on the latest UUK proposal – put forward last Friday – aimed at resolving the dispute.

The proposed deal includes the formation of a “Joint Expert Panel, comprised of actuarial and academic experts nominated in equal numbers from both sides,” which will seek “to agree key principles to underpin the future joint approach of UUK and UCU to the valuation of the USS (Universities Superannuation Scheme) fund.”

Under the proposal, the current defined benefit scheme will remain in place until at least April 2019.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said in a letter to members: “We have worked hard to gain these concessions, but they were won on the back of the strike action that so many of you have taken.

“As always it will be for members to decide whether what has been achieved is sufficient to suspend our strike action.”

Oxford reveals gender pay gap

Fred Dimbleby
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Oxford reveals gender pay gap

Oxford University has revealed it has a mean gender pay gap of 24.5%, which is higher than the national average.

The median pay gap shows a 13.7% disparity between pay for male and female staff members. The figures also show that 82% of staff earning over £100,000 are men.

It was further revealed that although more women than men are employed by the University, there is a mean bonus pay gap of 79%.

The University has blamed the gap on the lack of women in senior roles and has committed to increasing the representation of women across the institution.

Vice chancellor, Louise Richardson, said: “We are pleased to publish our data on gender equality. It is one important way of maintaining momentum and ensuring accountability.

“The lack of women occupying senior roles in universities remains a challenge to the Higher Education sector. Oxford, while an exceptional institution, is no exception when it comes to gender equality.

“We continue to work, however, with enthusiasm, energy and determination to address the considerable imbalance.”

The release follows a change in the law which now requires employers of more than 250 people to calculate and publish their annual gender pay gaps.

The largest imbalance was in the upper quartile of pay where men outnumbered women by 25.6%. The opposite was true of lower quartile of pay where women outnumbered men by 30.2%.

The median gap, which is viewed as a more reliable figure, fell below the national average.

The pro vice chancellor and University advocate for equality & diversity, Dr Rebecca Surender, said: “While it’s encouraging that our median gender pay gap is lower than the national average, we are not complacent and we recognise our need to continue to enable workplace gender equality across the University.

“We are committed to achieving one third representation of women across University leadership roles and on selection committees, and for women to comprise a minimum of 30% of Council and each of its main committees.

“Although there is a more work for us all to do, the University is clear that achieving gender equality is a key priority and we are committed to working to make this a reality.”

The data only covers University staff with Colleges expected to publish their own figures. Few colleges have released these statistics with Balliol College and Keble College showing the highest mean pay gaps with 16.2% and 18.5% respectively.

New College has also published its calculations showing a median gap of 24.3% and a mean of 12.6%.

Let’s Talk About: Drunk Texts

Katie Sayer
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Let’s Talk About: Drunk Texts

We’ve all been there: You wake up after a night out and something is missing. Could it be your keys? No, you needed them to get in. Could it be your ID? No, it’s on your bedside table. Could it be your phone? No. You’ve realised what it is. It’s your dignity.

It hits you slowly that, for the 10th night in a row, you’ve returned from some appropriately indie night at the Bully (or if we’re being truthful, Fever), with some appropriately worthy post night-out snack (or if we’re being truthful, Hassan’s) and instead of getting 8 hours of beauty sleep, ready to smash a day of productivity in the dreaming spires of the best university in the world, you have instead stayed up until 4am, texting a consort who probably studies philosophy (or if we’re being truthful, ex-consort) about how you can’t sleep and your feelings for hummus falafel wraps.

It hits you that, not only have you lost all your dignity in proclaiming that “ur gr9 c u in seminarrrr x”, but you’ve also become a fuck girl. This is the phenomenon I like to call ‘DTF’ – ‘drunk texting fiasco’.

The repercussions of a DTF can be hard to limit. Will your tute partner mind about the drunken Facebook message that says only ‘Hegel’ with 12 skiing emojis? Will your best friend’s boyfriend appreciate being told that “u shld get me a valentnes present to as I am half ur relationshi and draft most sexts u recive”? Will your tutor mind that you’ve drunkenly endorsed them for ‘banter’ on LinkedIn? Very probably.

You have several options in this situation. The first, and most obvious, is to blame it all on a malevolent twin. The second, and most 2012 of the options, is the classic “haha omg my friend sent that I’m so embarrassed ofc I’m not in love with you what omg”. The third, and least likely, is to try and accept what your subconscious is showing you, and confront the issues that your drunken frenzy has brought to a head.

There’s a maxim that ‘drunk words are sober thoughts’. But when your drunk words are ‘shout dijon site that tigre’, this becomes slightly harder to fully comprehend. So, should we be attempting to curb our drunken instincts? For the sake of dignity, the answer is obviously that alcohol and texting should be kept as far apart as Disco Stus and people with good taste. But in terms of what our drunk texting tells us about ourselves, I think we need to embrace these messy, paltry, and often overly emotional aspects of our inner selves.

If gin makes you cry about your ex, that isn’t entirely the fault of gin. If you tell everyone how worried you are about failing your degree after a Balliol Blue, that isn’t entirely the fault of the Balliol Blue. Perhaps it is the stress of being at Oxford. It is totally normal to supress an emotional response to something because you have a deadline, and you haven’t got time to keep on top of your work, train for a sport, and still get 8 hours every night.

We rarely give air time or precedence to our wellbeing. It is when drunk that these basic doubts materialise, and if your drunk self is telling you that you need to confront an issue, that’s rarely just Dutch courage talking.

Freud spoke of the id, the ego, and the superego. What I think would be more accurate would be the id, the ego, and the alterego you develop after tequila, who is an amplified version of your ego (more excited, more sociable) but motivated by the thoughts your id supresses.

This isn’t to say that you’re not being a total fuck girl when you text your hot neighbour with “u up?” at 3am, or that you shouldn’t panic if you wake up and see that you sent a snapchat you have literally no recollection of that has been opened and not responded to. But if your friend is crying about imposter syndrome after a night out, don’t accept their downplaying excuse of ‘drunken chat’. Our drunk selves may be more prone to vomiting and may be tasteless and debauched versions of our normal selves, but they are still worth listening to. That is unless your drunk self is telling you to go to Disco Stu’s. Then that really is just drunk chat.

Yo La Tengo Album Review: Convention and experiments

Arthur Charlesworth
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Yo La Tengo Album Review: Convention and experiments

Surprisingly, quintessential critics’ band Yo La Tengo are more quietus than riotous on their latest album, There’s a Riot Going On. Compare it to songs like ‘White Riot’, ‘I Predict a Riot’, ‘Riot in Cell Block No. 9’. These songs are all rough and ready, evoking clashes with the police over protests, punch-ups, or prison. There’s a Riot Going On may not be as aggressive but that’s not to call it boring.

There’s a Riot Going On is the New Jersey group’s White Album – Just as The Beatles switched between concrete music and ‘Musique Concrete’ on their eponymous effort, Yo La Tengo show a similar conventional-unconventional counterbalance in album opener ‘You Are Here’. The name alludes to location, the pendulum bass to purpose, and the motorik drive to direction, but all this is offset by the static which starts the track and partial piano chords which meander below the mix.

This juxtaposition joins once more in the Grandaddy-styled of ‘Shades of Blue’. The off-beat tambourine and seventies soft-rock singing suggest a simplicity undercut by the sludgy strings and synths. But it is in the Gregorian-jazz of ‘Ashes’ where the band really come into their own, as the organ’s regular riff and walking bass build through swirling, symphonic textures and chanted vocals. It is St Germain meets St Peter’s Basilica.

Although they do dabble with the sixties on other tracks, perfectly pastiching Pet Sounds on ‘Let’s Do It Wrong’, YLT (who formed back in 1984) demonstrate the wisdom of their own generation, rather than a desire to be born in a different one. In the post-rock churn of ‘For You To’, electro-experimentation of ‘Out of the Pool’ and washed-out indie of ‘What Chance Have I Got’, the album is a showcase of what the band have done for music, rather than what music has done for the band.

However, at times the balance is off. In their attempt to create uncertainty, sometimes the band appear to be uncertain as to what they have created. ‘She May, She Might’ has the irritating falsetto vocals of much of YLT’s later discography and is only saved by the George Martin inspired tape effects. Likewise, the ambient soundscapes ‘Dream Dream Away’ and ‘Shortwave’ (which run into one another) are the longest 11 and a half minutes of my life.

Moreover, when they go short they often fall short. ‘Esportes Casual’ is one and a half minutes of bosa nova elevator music which makes you want to take the stairs. While ‘Polynesia #1’ burdens blissful Byrdsesque guitars with laboured lyrics; rhyming ‘Polynesia’ with ‘leisure’.

But the odd ‘off’ track is always found on a double album – what were the Beatles thinking with ‘Bungalow Bill’?! Moreover, these up and downs when taken in isolation, become ebbs and flows when the LP is played start to finish. There’s a Riot is certainly Yo La Tengo’s best effort since 2009’s Popular Songs and has a depth and detail which gets better with each listen. Everything has an air of CAN being played in a can and the echoey expanses created are there for you to explore.

Understandably, for a band with a foreign name, loved by critics and muso’s alike, Yo La Tengo sometimes seem self-indulgent and self-obsessed, a fact which they play up to with ‘You are Here’/‘Here You Are’ beginning/ending of this album. But at other times (as their name means in English) they ‘have it’; an indefinable ‘something’ which inhabits the expanse between earphones.

It is at these moments, that the call to arms of There’s a Riot rings true. The guitar effects affect us, the reverb resonates with us, and the echoing chamber rock which the band espouse makes us ‘riot’ against the echo-chamber of contemporary music. Rather than stand-up and fight, this album makes us sit-down and think, but in such a blind, busy and blundering world such a quiet riot is no bad thing.

Holidays lead us down the trail of discovery

Eve Webster
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Holidays lead us down the trail of discovery

Studying at Oxford can be brilliant, but the infamous bubble is often stifling and claustrophobic. Mistakes, problems, and difficult situations totally surround us and seem inescapable – that is, until term finishes and most of us migrate out of the city.

Taking a break from our whirlwind lives at Oxford can provide an outsider’s perspective which allows us to analyse them, be grateful for them, or change them. After a Hilary term filled with feelings of isolation and disorientation, the break is an invaluable time to rediscover our bearings.

But we as students are given these six week holidays, when for many this sort of break has to be self-imposed. This kind of self-imposed holiday, to recuperate and reflect, is presented with passion, humility and humour by Cheryl Strayed in Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

In the years leading up to 1995, Cheryl Stayed had gotten lost. After losing her mother to lung cancer at twenty-one years old, she took a series of wrong turns and found herself on a stained and bare mattress, next to a stranger, in an unknown city with a syringe full of heroine stuck in her ankle.

Cheryl decided to leave the whirlpool of disaster which her life had become and walk 1,100 miles up the West Coast of America, from the heat Mojave desert to the Bridge of God’s in North Oregon “to become the person my mother raised [me] to be”.

This could easily be seen as an indulgent holiday of alleged self-discovery, in a “gap-yah” fashion, but Strayed makes clear that the walk she takes is not a choice. It is an ardent, inconvenient necessity made in order to salvage her life and move on.

While most of her suffering was, in many respects, self-inflicted (her dropping out of college, her string of unfulfilling jobs, her compulsive promiscuity leading to divorce, and her eventual drug addiction) they nonetheless knocked her off her path in a shocking and brutal manner.

On her trip, she does not discover herself per se. In fact, the ending passage of the novel reflects on how neither she, nor anyone else, can ever fully know their “mysterious and irrevocable” self. Instead, it revels in the beauty of not needing to analyse and understand the meaning of every confusing element of ourselves.

The trip affirms for, not reveals to, Cheryl what she already knows of herself and the world, but has lost sight of. That she is a part of, not apart from, nature and the wilderness, as much as the mountains she climbs and the forest she treks through. And that she can bear more than she ever thought.

But most of all, the trek makes it undeniably clear to her that she is a writer. It shows her what she always suspected; that, through navigating in the wild, through her bizarre encounters, though each unique and life-affirming experience, she sees the world as a story to tell.

In the endless, lonely hours of her trek, once she has worked through the kinks of her past, she begins to recycle it into what would become her first novel. Thirteen years later she does this again, with the trek itself, for her second.

While the author’s experiences are certainly niche and call for somewhat drastic action, Strayed’s little unconventional holiday from her life is one of the better choices made in her twenties. Her holiday contains lessons which are of value to all of us. By cutting away all arbitrary goals, she is able to rid herself of her cluttered aspirations and illusionary needs, to find what kind of a path she wants to return to.

Any holiday – be it a few days at home, a lazy week on the beach, a lad’s trip to Magaluf or even the aforementioned “gap yah” –  detaches us and creates a little distance from our everyday lives. They allow us to assess them and maybe, as was the case for Cheryl, show us how we can abandon, express or change them.

Why I won’t be participating in trashing

Sarah Wright
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Why I won’t be participating in trashing

What do shaving foam, glitter, flour, eggs, raw meat, talcum powder and silly string all have in common? At one point or another, all of them have been gleefully thrown over finalists leaving their last exam in the utterly bizarre Oxford tradition of trashing. 

There’s a buzzing atmosphere at trashings. One May afternoon in first year I clustered with  hundreds of others around the Merton Street exit of Exam Schools, waiting for my friend, one of the English finalists, to emerge. Everyone was eager to celebrate, especially those without exams of their own or, like me, with upcoming Prelims banished to the back of their mind. My friend came out, looking a little dazed. We popped the cork, stuck two party hats on her head and doused her in shaving foam, enveloping her in huge, sticky hugs. But once the finalists and their hangers-on had gone, Merton Street was still covered in the mess we’d made and, strangely enough, none of us came back to clear it up.

No-one quite knows when trashing as a tradition started — various articles quote a now-defunct Wikipedia page saying it began in the nineties — but it’s a fairly recent phenomenon. Colleges and the University have tried to put a stop to it, or at least limit its damage, in the last few years: foods and liquids have been banned, and the University Proctors state that students must not ‘throw, pour, spray, apply or use anything in a way that is intended or likely to injure anyone, damage (including defacing or destroying) any property, or cause litter’. Any trashing misconduct could earn students an £80 fine, or even lead to expulsion.

Given the high levels of poverty and homelessness in Oxford, asking students not to chuck perfectly edible food over their friends seems reasonable enough. Then there’s the cost of buying provisions in the first place, a booming industry if the queues trailing from Oxford’s party supply shops at twenty past twelve on exam days are anything to go by. It’s also worth noting that for some, trashing is just an unpleasant experience. Call me old-fashioned, but my idea of celebrating doesn’t involve immediately having to take a shower to stop myself from being turned into ready-made cake mix. Particularly for those with sensory issues, the prospect of being covered in various sticky substances while surrounded by a crowd of screaming people is unappealing at best, overwhelming at worst.

Calm down, you might say, it’s just a bit of fun. But what’s the point of trashing? Why do we celebrate the end of our friends’ exams by turning them into walking, talking, glittery foam-people? The ridicule? The profile pictures? The sheer, childlike glee of making a mess? There’s more than likely some element of performance: just as our Facebook feeds fill up with exhausted students clutching brown envelopes at the end of Hilary, so too do trashing pictures appear in May and June. Multiple angles, multiple friends to document our success; it’s the academic extension of the ‘Drinks with this one x’ Instagram post, a social competition as much as anything. For those without a close-knit friendship group, trashings can be a disheartening experience.

And I get it, I do. Once my finals are over this summer, I’m sure I’ll want to celebrate as much as anyone else. But celebrating and trashing don’t have to go hand in hand. Even with the ban on food and the move towards biodegradable products, trashing is still incredibly wasteful (if you don’t believe me, try walking past Exam Schools five minutes after the crowds clear). More than anything, I don’t want to make a mess that someone else has to clean up, just because I’m happy to be done with exams. By all means, celebrate with your friends: pop some champagne, wear a party hat, jump up and down screaming for ten minutes straight. Just don’t expect someone else to clean up your mess.

 

I’m deleting Facebook, for your benefit as much as mine

Johnny Lucas
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I’m deleting Facebook, for your benefit as much as mine

This is not about mental health, although that alone is (or should be) a good enough reason for deleting your Facebook account. It’s also not about “living life in the moment”, or “returning to a simpler time”. This will not be a holier-than-thou sermon to the effect of “I’m deleting Facebook, and if you know what’s good for you, you will too”. This is a response to the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, who used data from Facebook to compromise the integrity of the democratic process worldwide.

In a curiously prescient art film from 1973 titled “Television Delivers People”, text scrolls over a blank background, proclaiming that “The viewer is not responsible for programming…you are the end product.” In the case of social media, to say we are only products is an oversimplification. Our data is the product. And we, as consumers, produce it. We are individually and collectively responsible for our own ‘programming’, though we can’t choose what form it takes, or how it is delivered.

We’ve known for over a year that we can’t trust Facebook to be responsible – not with the headlines they show us, not with the research on us that they conduct, and certainly not with our data. Whilst treating their user base as if they were a combination of lab rats and golden geese, they have repeatedly proven themselves to be arrogant, duplicitous, and incompetent. In times where security breaches of tech companies are commonplace and black markets for the trade of stolen data are multi-million dollar affairs, these opinions are not controversial.

But this was no security breach. Facebook didn’t fail to defend our data, they simply sold it. In effect, they sold us. The fields of psychometrics and quantitative psychology, in combination with vast quantities of user data, allowed governments and companies such as Cambridge Analytica to manipulate us in unprecedented ways and to, as Mark Turnbull so charmingly put it, “drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand…those really, deep-seated underlying fears, concerns”. Turnbull is not talking about individuals here. He is talking about aggregates and averages. This is the law of large numbers at work: an individual person is very difficult to predict, but large groups of people are far easier. Every reaction I choose, every video I watch, and every meme I tag my friends in contribute to an algorithm’s accuracy in targeting not only me, but also people like me. I produced the data. Facebook sold the data. Cambridge Analytica used the data. Now a demagogue sits in the White House, and Britain is leaving the EU. Who is responsible?

Of course Cambridge Analytica is. They knowingly misused data meant for academic research purposes, and gleefully provided Steve Bannon a weapon with which to wage his culture war.

Of course Facebook is. They’ve played fast and loose with our data in a way that, at best, indicates gross negligence.

But I am too. The data I produced for Facebook refined every algorithm that it was fed into. This is true not only of CA, but of all the other companies and governments (I’m looking at you, Russia) that perform identical metrics. My data is being misused, and I am, however indirectly, responsible for the effects that it causes. Similarly, people who don’t get immunised against disease are responsible for the (now alarmingly increasing) death toll due to preventable diseases. To protect the health of the herd, every animal has to pitch in and get vaccinated. I can’t be certain that Facebook (or blackhat hackers) won’t sell my data to another company or government looking to manipulate an election. The only solution I see is to delete my data, in the hope that it knocks a fraction of a percentage point of accuracy off those algorithms trying to scare someone into voting for a racist, or a misogynist, or a fascist, or some combination of the above. If enough people did the same, they would stop working entirely.

I have read arguments that claim there is no need to quit Facebook entirely. They point out how embedded the platform is in our lives, how difficult it is to delete your data, as well as its positive potential. Initially, I found them compelling. But then indignation kicked in. How could I let myself be held hostage by photos (or “memories”, as Facebook insidiously terms them) which I could easily download? Wouldn’t a new, professional account, devoid of anything but the bare minimum of personal data be sufficient for work? Surely the process of deletion couldn’t be more difficult than navigating Weblearn for the first time? (It isn’t.) Yes, Facebook’s potential to bring people together is unparalleled. But the source of its strength is also its greatest weakness – it can only function effectively with a huge number of users. We can easily envision a social network built upon principles of transparency, privacy, and integrity (perhaps based on blockchain technology). Viewed as a consumer choice, quitting Facebook provides tech companies with a tangible incentive in terms of user numbers to create that network. It falls to us to create that incentive, to show that this is a status quo we will not, under any circumstances, tolerate. #Deletefacebook.

Oxford win women’s Varsity match on penalties

Fred Dimbleby
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Oxford win women’s Varsity match on penalties

Oxford won the women’s Varsity match on penalties after a thrilling 3-3 draw with Cambridge.

After a 3-0 win in the men’s match, the Dark Blues twice came from behind to seal a fourth consecutive double victory.

Cambridge started the game well and quickly opened their account after a well-delivered corner was headed in by Jen Atherton in the 16th minute.

Oxford hit back quickly after the goal and pushed the Cambridge defence hard. In the end it was another set piece which delivered the goods for the Dark Blues after star player Beverley Leon equalised from a rebound in the 40th minute.

Oxford didn’t have the lead for long however and another set piece delivered a second for Cambridge. This time, Sophia d’Angelo converted a well rehearsed corner to make it 2-1 to the Light Blues.

A period of end to end play followed the goal with both teams going close. However, Oxford went into half-time one goal down to what was a strong Cambridge team.

Oxford started the second half well and had some very close opportunities with Leon again almost finding the back of the net, following a skilful solo run.

But it was Cambridge who scored first after Oxford gave away a penalty in the 54th minute. Dark Blue substitute keeper, May Martin, dived the right way and was unlucky to concede a well-hit penalty from Atherton to make it 3-1.

Oxford fought back quickly and some more strong play from Leon finally broke through the Cambridge defence in 60th minute. She headed a good cross in the back of the net to take the match to 3-2.

However, there was still drama in the match with substitute Mary Hintze scoring late after a Cambridge defensive error. The match finished 3-3 and went to penalties.

Oxford shot first and never looked back. A good save from substitute goalie May Martin and a miss from Cambridge led to a 4-2 shoot-out victory.

Oxford’s coach, Rob Gier, told Cherwell:”I am feeling over the moon. The team has just been brilliant from when we started to today and it’s a culmination today of all their hard work that they have put in.”

“They were absolutely outstanding and it was great to see how they dug in when they were three one down. The goals galvanised them. We knew Cambridge were going to be aggressive but we pushed back at them and I just couldn’t be prouder of the girls right now.”

Oxford win men’s football Varsity

Fred Dimbleby
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Oxford win men’s football Varsity

Oxford men’s team put in a dominant display to win the 2018 men’s football Varsity match 3-0.

This is fourth win in a row for Oxford against Cambridge in the Varsity match, which was played in Barnet FC’s stadium The Hive.

The Dark Blues entered the match slight favourites after a good run of form in the Bucs league.

Oxford started the game well and pressed the Cambridge defence on a number of occasions. The break through came from fan favourite Dominic Thelen who converted in the 24th minute after a long period of passing play from the dark blues.

A second goal quickly followed, with wing-back Leo Ackerman scoring after a clever solo run in the 31st minute. Ackerman slightly skewed his shot but it squirmed under the Cambridge goalkeeper and nestled in the bottom left corner.

Oxford went into the break dominating the game after some wasteful attacking moves from the Light Blues.

Both teams made subs coming into the second half, and Cambridge looked like they may be able to get one back.

But Thelen settled the match with his second of the afternoon in the 77th minute. His clever chip over the Cambridge keeper’s head followed a well-rehearsed bit of play from the Dark Blues.

Dom Thelen scored two to take the game away from the Light Blues.

Thelen, who has been Oxford’s star of the season, performed strongly throughout and was awarded man of the match.

The match was the first of a double-header Varsity which will see the Oxford women’s Blues team play Cambridge later in the afternoon.

Oxford’s coach, Mickey Lewis, told Cherwell: “It’s great to win the Varsity game, it was a really enjoyable occasion. The occasion of coming to a football league ground is great, but when you step over the line it is all about the game and its nice to get a win.”

Lewis, speaking about man of the match Dom Thelen, said: “Dom is a good footballer and he always has a goal in him. He scored two really well taken goals today. As a footballer, he could still carry on playing and play at a non league. He has a lot of ability but today was a real team effort.”

“The team are now off to America for ten days and some of the boys have a lot of studying to do. But it’s been a good season and we will restart again soon.”

Cambridge win the Men’s Boat Race

Fred Dimbleby
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Cambridge win the Men’s Boat Race

The Cambridge Men have won the 2018 Boat Race by 10 seconds.

Cambridge led from the off after a tricky start where the teams came close to clashing.

Oxford looked like they might hold on and kept up with Cambridge for the first five minutes of the race. But, as the crews past under the Hammersmith bridge, Cambridge’s lead became insurmountable. They finished three lengths ahead of their rivals.

Flares were let off by environmental protest groups from both universities as the boats crossed under the bridge.

Cambridge’s final time was 17 minutes and 51 seconds, which marks a strong performance for the now dominant boat. This is the seventh win for Cambridge since the millennia and gives them an 83 to 80 lead in the boat race overall.

Cambridge’s coach, Steve Trapmore, said: “The boys really stepped up and delivered.”

He added: “They took it up from stroke one and bang, they were off. In this race, so many things can go wrong, but you could tell they were on the money today.”

Cambridge entered the race as odds on favourites and, being the heavier and more experienced crew. Oxford had had a tough week with crew troubles making the national headlines. Returning blue and experienced rower Joshua Bugajski left the boat and was replaced by Benedict Aldous.

Aldous, who rowed in sixth seat, made national headlines last year when he was banned from JCR events at his college, Christ Church, after attending a ‘2016’-themed bop dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The loss caps off a disappointing day for Oxford rowing with all four Oxford boats, including the women’s crew and the reserves’ crews, losing their events. It is the first time that Cambridge have won all four races since 1997.

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