THERE was some good news on the sporting front for Newcastle for a change when the city’s students scored their first victory against Durham in the university boat race.

The Newcastle crew clinched the overall trophy on Saturday at the 13th attempt by three races to one.

Strong winds and a fast current delayed the start by 30 minutes, but spectators who gathered on the banks of the Tyne were not disappointed once the action started.

Durham won the first race, the freshwomen’s eights, crossing the finish line a length ahead of Newcastle.

In the freshmen’s eight, Newcastle took the lead in the early stages of the 1,800-metre race and stormed ahead to win easily.

Durham University went into the senior women’s race as hot favourites, but as the crews emerged from beneath the Swing Bridge, the boats were neck and neck.

Newcastle’s women, coxed by Ruaridh MacPhee, put in an enormous effort to pull off the most dramatic and unexpected victory of the day, winning by a canvas, the narrowest of margins.

Durham’s boat, which had taken on a lot of water, dramatically sank just beyond the finish line.

With Newcastle leading by two wins to one, the pressure was mounting on the senior men’s crews.

The crews were neck-and-neck approaching the finish, but disaster struck Durham when the choppy water conditions got the better of a crew member, whose blade got caught by the current – known as catching a crab – knocking the crew off their stroke and causing them to pull up within sight of the line, leaving Newcastle to claim victory.

Mason Durant, the ecstatic president of Newcastle University Boat Club, said: “We have waited a long time for this, and it is pretty special.”

Durham’s President Olly Offord could only say: “I’m gutted, just gutted.”

Colin Blackburn, chairman of the boat race executive committee, said: “It was a tremendous afternoon of racing and has reaffirmed why the university boat race is such a highlight in sporting calendars of both universities.”