Sporting life

However inclusive the intended athletic scholarships scheme is, it is unlikely to reproduce some of the academic performances of past university sportsmen. Oxford cricketers in particular appear to have had a relaxed attitude to the system - H. D. G. Leveson Gower (1890s) recalled in his memoirs, published more than half a century later that "we were occasionally required to write an essay", while Scottish leg-spinner Ian Peebles's failure to return to Brasenose after taking a record 80 wickets in his freshman 1930 season was explained by his law tutor: "You obtained 1 per cent in one exam and were not quite so successful in the other."