It proved to be a closely fought contest on a day of grey skies, as the light blues of Cambridge defeated the dark blues of Oxford.

Cambridge also won the women's race, first rowed in 1927.

Many thousands lined the tow path and local bars along the route from Putney to Mortlake to watch.

Until relatively recently, the varsity rugby match between the two universities attracted a capacity crowd to Twickenham. 

But photographs of the most recent encounters show empty seats, with Cambridge winning the latest men's match in a series which started in 1872.

Oxford's women recorded their first victory since 2016.

The football match, established almost 150 years ago, once attracted big crowds as the universities "tried conclusions under the association rules", to use the parlance of newspapers of the day.

The Football Association (FA) had just launched the Football Association Challenge Cup, more usually known as the FA Cup, and in 1874 Oxford University lifted the trophy.

The football matches in 2023 had been scheduled a fortnight ago at Brisbane Road, the home ground of Leyton Orient and only three kilometres from London's Olympic Stadium.

When they were cancelled as a result of "weather conditions affecting the pitch", the announcement barely registered outside those immediately concerned.

Seventy years ago, it was all very different when a combined team from Oxford and Cambridge Universities attracted a capacity crowd of 100,000 to Wembley Stadium for the second time in three years.

Huge crowds had watched sport in the years after the Second World War, and the FA decided that its Amateur Cup competition would benefit from a final at Wembley.

In the same year of 1948, a club was formed with the aim of "the encouragement and improvement of association football at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge by the formation of a joint team".

The driving force behind it was Dr Harold Thompson, a distinguished scientist and former player at Oxford.

The football club at Oxford was known as the Centaurs and Cambridge had the Falcons, so, at the suggestion of Thompson's wife, the new club was named Pegasus after the mythical winged horse.

The dream was for it to take part in the Amateur Cup.

Subscriptions were set at two shillings and sixpence, in modern currency just £0.12 ($0.15/€0.14).

The Reverend Kenneth Reginald Gunnery Hunt, an Olympic football gold medallist in 1908, was appointed as the first Pegasus President.

The idea was that players would be drawn from those attending the universities but a clause also allowed those who had left within one year to also play.

Thompson was a member of the influential FA Council and sent a long memorandum to explain why the club should be granted an exemption from the early rounds.

This was essential because players at Oxford and Cambridge were committed to playing the varsity match in early December.

Pegasus were therefore exempted until the fourth qualifying round of the Amateur Cup.

Their opponents Enfield, a team from North London who played in the Athenian League, agreed to delay the match, provided it was switched to their home ground.

Oxford beat Cambridge 5-4 in the varsity match and then the Pegasus team was chosen. 

The 11 played together for the first time in a 1-0 victory over Arsenal Reserves at Highbury.

They returned to North London a few days later to meet Enfield, and came from a goal behind to win 3-1.

"Pegasus did not play well enough in their first encounter to make us predict a Corinthian revival," reported Norman Ackland under the pseudonym "Pangloss" in the News Chronicle. 

Yet, as Pegasus centre back Ken Shearwood later wrote in his history of the club: "On reflection it was the most important cup tie Pegasus ever played." 

Pegasus reached the quarter-finals before losing 4-3 to eventual winners Bromley.

Their home matches were held at Iffley Road in Oxford, the venue where Roger Bannister achieved his record breaking sub four minute mile in 1954.

The footballers often trained on the track, mingling with Bannister and Chris Chataway who also ran in the successful record attempt.

Pegasus enlisted Vic Buckingham of soon-to-be league champions Tottenham Hotspur to coach them.

"We were a thoughtful side, we played simple, good, push and run football and tackled it professionally," Shearwood recalled.

Many of the Pegasus matches were televised. It was still a new medium and producers ordered the ball to be painted white for greater visibility.

"Why did they follow us? I think we were underdogs coming in getting off to a good start," Shearwood suggested.

In 1951, their first tie was against Gosport Borough Athletic in Hampshire. Pegasus eventually won 4-3.

Then they defeated Slough Town before a crowd of 6,000, which included England cricket star Denis Compton who had played football for Arsenal.

"Slough had no counter to the speed of the Pegasus attack," Compton observed.

When they met Oxford City in the quarter-finals, fans were queueing for hours to try and secure a ticket.

The gates were eventually locked with 9,500 inside to see Pegasus win 3-0.

In the semi-final at Highbury, opponents Hendon were awarded a penalty in the closing minutes with the scores level.

Pegasus keeper Ben Brown made a superb save from future Olympic player Dexter Adams to ensure a draw.

The replay was on boat race day and as Pegasus arrived at the ground, they heard on the radio how the Oxford crew had sunk during the race.

It did not prove an omen as Pegasus defeated Hendon 3-2 to reach the final.

Waiting to meet them were Bishop Auckland from the north-east of England, then considered one of the finest amateur teams.

The "Bishops" had Bob Hardisty, the British Olympic captain in 1948, but Pegasus won 2-1.

The second Pegasus Wembley odyssey did not start in promising fashion as they conceded two early goals against Hayes, but they rallied to win 4-2.

In the following round, they hit five without reply against Cockfield, another side from the north-east.

By this time, a dispute about player eligibility had begun to threaten good relations between Pegasus and the more established Corinthian Casuals who traditionally recruited many players from Oxford or Cambridge.

Doug Insole, an early Pegasus member who later played Test cricket for England, outlined the dispute in a Cambridge magazine.

"It was evident, I think, from the very first meeting that whereas we in Cambridge saw us as one for university players actually in residence, the Oxford people were looking for something with a much broader base," Insole wrote.

When the two clubs were drawn to play against one another in the third round, the dispute added further spice to the occasion.

"There is no need for me to tell you how much our cup tie against the Corinthian Casuals is exciting the general public," Thompson wrote to the Pegasus players.

The match was played at The Oval in South London where gates were closed at 12,000.

Pegasus won 1-0 and then beat Slough and Southall to reach the final again.

The 1953 final against Harwich and Parkeston proved one of the most one-sided matches ever seen at Wembley.

Pegasus scored six without reply, a margin of victory equalled by Manchester City in 2019 when they defeated Watford in the FA Cup Final.

The Times described the Pegasus performance as "a mature exhibition of pure football".

Donny Davies, who wrote for The Guardian under the pen name "An Old International", described the "fundamental beauty of the Pegasus method".

The Pegasus team was packed with amateur internationals and gifted sportsmen.

Jerry Alexander later captained the West Indies cricket team and Tony Pawson was an individual world fly fishing champion.

"Pegasus played majestically, their positional play and imaginative passing, ankle-high and exact to the last refined inch, seemed to widen the large pitch," the FA's own yearbook concluded.

"They played like one man and the ball seemed to be their exclusive property."

Yet 1953 proved to be the high point of the club's achievements and the team only lasted for ten more years.

As the dispute about eligibility after leaving the university deepened, the support for the club from Cambridge dwindled as players opted to join Corinthian Casuals instead.

Without the backing of both universities, Pegasus struggled to find sufficient players.

"Pegasus came and went like a shooting star, but in their short life they shed a bright light on the game as a whole," wrote Geoffrey Green in The Times.

The club played their final recorded match 60 years ago this week.

It was against Marston United in the Oxfordshire Senior Cup on April 6, 1963.

It attracted a crowd numbered in the hundreds, rather than the thousands which followed their halcyon days.