Up to, and including this year there was no great consistency in the use of the flags at the standard marks and compared to the later years the amount of factual information is less.

When times are recorded they are often those for the leader/winner and differences between the two crews are measured by judged distance rather than by time. In consequence the accounts before this have much less detail.

Some contemporary newspaper accounts are appended, in part to give more detail about exciting races, but in part to give a flavour of the nature of some of these early races which show dramatic differences from those rowed later, if only in the level of obstruction which existed to serious rowing as a result of skiffs, wherries, barges and steamers, behind, to the left and right and in front of the racing crews.

Contemporary commentaries speak about the roughness of the Oxford crew at the start of the 1880 training period and stress that their performance only really improved when L.R.West took over as stroke.

Cambridge on the other hand looked very good from the early days of training, but they moved the members of their crew round and there was a strong feeling that these changes did not always improve the performance.

The race was originally arranged for early morning on Saturday March 20th but the fog was so thick that it was impossible to row at either the agreed time or before the tide turned and in consequence it was postponed until the Monday, one of the very few occasions in which the race has been postponed because of the weather.

On the Monday morning, on a poor tide and with an unpleasant strong easterly wind, Oxford won the toss and chose the Middlesex station. Cambridge moved off well and established a reasonable lead but Oxford gradually brought them back, with Oxford rowing comfortably and within themselves at a slower rating than their rivals.

As they moved into Chiswick Reach, West increased the rating and caught up and then moved away from the Light Blues by the time that they reached the Eyot. They then built on this further to win by 3 3/4 lengths in 21 minutes 23 seconds.