It was a mucky and muddy business when dwile flunking came to Oxford.

A ferocious battle developed as students from Oxford College of Further Education took on opponents from Kings Lynn in a Headington field in 1976.

The ancient sport involves two teams of 10, a stick, a dirty wet rag, plenty of beer, a lot of flour and some rotten eggs.

One team stands in a circle while a member of the other side tries to project (flunk) a wet rag (the dwile) at them.

If he succeeds, he wins points; if he fails, he is likely to have a chamber pot of beer tipped over his head if he can’t drink it quickly enough.

While this is going on, other players intimidate each other with eggs and flour.

The final score was King’s Lynn 15, Oxford eight. Oxford put their defeat down to “lack of training and a suspect referee”. In other words, they flunked it. Or rather, they didn’t.