By Rob Harris
Cambridge: Between them, Cambridge and Oxford have produced the most influential and celebrated thinkers, scientists, writers and leaders in world history. From Isaac Newton to Charles Darwin, Oscar Wilde to Adam Smith.
The rivalry between the two famed universities – both academic and sporting – is rarely matched. But away from the famous boat race, held annually since 1829, the two also lay claim to the longest-running annual Aussie rules football contest held outside of Australia.
Oxford and Cambridge will clash on the Aussie rules field for a 105th consecutive year this weekend. From left: Håvard Hem Toftevaag (Oxford president), Vicky Tan (Oxford women’s co-captain), Henry Marshall (Cambridge president), Sam Kentwell (Cambridge women’s coach), Anna Garcia (Oxford women’s co-captain) and Max Collett (Oxford men’s captain).Credit: Stephen Bond
“Some of the chats you have on the bus are kind of astounding,” Nick Young, the coach of both Oxford men’s and women’s teams, says. “Like it’s probably the nerdiest football club on earth.”
Founded by expats studying at the universities before World War I, the annual Aussie rules varsity match was first played in 1911 and continues to attract Australian scholars homesick for their unique code. In 1921, it became an annual contest with alternating hosts.
This weekend will be the 105th consecutive clash between the men’s teams, with its women’s fixture now approaching a decade old. Busloads are booked to make the two-hour trip from Oxford to at St John’s College Playing Fields in Cambridge. Even food trucks will be on hand.
Young, who hails from Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, is a Rhodes scholar undertaking a PhD in climate law litigation. A serious concussion as a player last year has sidelined him permanently, after he came to the conclusion his studies were a tad more important.
The historic first Oxford v Cambridge women’s Australian rules football match in 2018 ended in a draw.
“I was really surprised to find there was a club in Oxford and immediately felt a sense of community and connection and a bit of home away from home,” he says. “But we have a lot of players from all over the world and as much as a community for us, it’s become a great way of sharing the game internationally and kind of promoting Australian culture a bit, too.”
While the senior men’s team this weekend will be “about 60-40” with Aussies to internationals, Oxford’s women’s ranks are heavily stacked with internationals, with British, Irish and Canadian among them. Even at an administrative level the Australian game has captured foreign hearts, now of Brits, Canadians and an Indonesian.
The club president and ever improving senior player, Håvard Hem Toftevaag, (given the Aussie-style nickname Howie) is from Norway.
Toftevaag, who is completing a doctorate in advanced nanoscale engineering, says an Australian friend at his college dragged him along.
Bob Hawke with his mother, Ellie, packing to go to Oxford University.
“I’d never really heard about footy. Never even been to Australia ... but then I gave it a try and I think I like the sport, but I think the people,” he says. “I don’t know if all Australians in Australia are nice, but the Australians in Oxford ... I love the people and I just stayed around … now I’m president.”
The rollcall of notable Australians who have taken part in the match is stunning. Bob Hawke, a future prime minister, kicked around a Sherrin while he was at Oxford. So did Howard Florey, the pharmacologist from Adelaide who shared the Nobel Prize for his role in the making of penicillin.
Dr Mitch Robertson, a former Oxford player who has now returned to Melbourne as Dean of Studies at Newman College, says runner Herb Elliot played for Cambridge while he was there studying natural sciences in the early 1960s.
“I used to give a speech to my team, saying imagine turning up and looking to your left, and you have Herb Elliot, the reigning Olympic gold medallist, looking back at you? You’d be in for a long day running, wouldn’t you?” he says.
Bob Hawke playing with snow in Oxford in 1954.Credit: Hazel Hawke Collection, John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library
Robertson, a historian who is planning a book on the annual clash, says another tale, but difficult to pin down as fact, is that Rupert Murdoch even umpired a game while studying at Oxford in the early 1950s. Around that time, a game was played under heavy snow, forcing visiting prime minister Robert Menzies to stay away. In 1954, a six-minute long film of the match was shown on BBC, thought to be the first time Aussie rules was broadcast on television.
As a Rhodes Scholar in the 1970s, a young Mike Fitzpatrick played three matches before returning and playing in three Carlton premierships, captaining two. He would also later be chairman of the AFL for a decade. Among his teammates were now retired Supreme Court of Victoria judge Chris Maxwell and businessmen Sir Rod Eddington.
Henry Marshall, a John Monash scholar from Adelaide and Cambridge’s club president, is quick to point out that ties between his university and Australian rules football go back further, dating to the 1850s when Tom Wills, one of the code’s founding fathers, played cricket for the university.
Oxford v Cambridge annual inter-varsity Australian rules match in 2005.
Marshall, undertaking his PhD in molecular cancer biology at the renowned Wellcome Sanger centre, says his former professors in Adelaide – both Oxford alumni – had told him to sign up for a game before boarding his flight.
“I had basically stopped playing footy while I did med school, a six-year degree and then another two years working. So it’d been eight years without playing any footy,” he says. “Then I just kind of fell in love with the community, with the club.”
Among Cambridge’s recent homegrown stars are Joe Lillis, undertaking a PhD in nutritional physiology, who has captained the GB national team. Erin Hoare, a former Geelong AFLW player and professional netballer, was also previously among the women’s team’s ranks while studying at Cambridge. Like Oxford, both men’s and women’s play in a national universities league and head to Europe to play tournaments.
The inclusion of the women’s teams has transformed the game at both universities, Marshall says, and has made the inter-varsity clash one of the big annual sporting days out.
Sam Kentwell, a marine biologist at the British Antarctic Survey, who grew up in North Sydney and studied in northern Queensland, says coaching Cambridge women has not only made her footy-loving dad proud back home but given her a sense of belonging.
“I didn’t expect it in England, you know, I couldn’t have imagined it. I grew up around footy and then to find it here of all places. I just fell into this group, like, we’re all best mates out of the club as well now.”
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