Since 1965, Lancaster & York have fought fiercely for the coveted Roses title and this year was no exception, with the two famous rivals doing battle virtually. The event was organised by Lancaster VP Activities, Victoria, in collaboration with the York University VP Sport.

Although the competition took place online, it remained just as competitive with hundreds of staff, students and alumni from both the Red and White Rose taking part in a series of innovate challenges.

These new virtual challenges really captured the imagination of the Lancaster community with over 1200 Lancastrians from a diverse range of teams and societies digging out old Roses T-shirts and donning war paint to do their bit for the Red Rose. In addition to their sporting exploits, team Lancaster were able to raise over £250 for food groups in the local area, further funds are expected to be collected by teams and societies in the coming weeks.

Highlights of the event included pet obstacle course races, flash dancing and a series of home baking challenges. Whilst a number of sports clubs and societies competed fiercely in virtual challenges, ranging from a very creative swimming relay to toilet roll 'Keepie Ups'.

Lancaster claimed a number of victories across the event, including the much-coveted Great Roses Bake Off. While new Lancaster University Vice Chancellor Andy Schofield quickly got into the spirit of Roses, taking on his counterpart at York in a ‘build your own university merchandise’ competition.

You can find a the full calendar of events from the weekend and watch highlights here .

As always, the event was a very close-run contest which went down to the wire, with York eventually taking the virtual crown, scoring 2337 points to Lancaster’s 1971.

The event was a fantastic celebration of virtual fun for students, past and present and helped to fill a Roses shaped hole in our lives and although the weekend concluded in a narrow York win, we know that roses will always be red!