Doxbridge
Doxbridge is a portmanteau of Durham, Oxford, and Cambridge, referring to the universities of those names. It is an expansion of the more popular portmanteau Oxbridge, referring to Oxford and Cambridge universities and similar to the portmanteau Loxbridge, referring to London, Oxford and Cambridge. The Doxbridge portmanteau has failed to gain widespread recognition and is usually used tongue-in-cheek. Nonetheless, many of the characteristics used to identify Oxford and Cambridge as distinct from other British universities are also identifiable to varying extents in Durham, and the term has been used seriously in analysis of the legal jobs market . Origin and use of the term. Durham University was founded in 1832, ending a period of over 600 years in which (apart from the short-lived 13th century University of Northampton) Oxford and Cambridge were England's only recognised universities. It was intended to serve as a northern complement to them, offering "that system of domestic discipline and instruction which has been found to be so efficacious in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge". The early university followed a model similar to the two older universities in its links to the Anglican church, in its collegiate structure and in its  BA course. Examiners were brought in from Oxford University to help with setting and marking exams and to ensure that comparable standards were maintained – the origin of the external examiner system which is now standard across all UK universities. However, it broke from Oxbridge in having professorial teaching by university professors rather than tutorials given by college tutors (professorial teaching would not be revived at Oxbridge until later in the 19th century), in pioneering the university teaching of theology and of engineering, and in the use of university matriculation examinations. Durham was rebuffed in its attempts in the first couple  of decades of its existence to have its degrees recognised in the mutual "ad eundem" system which existed between Oxford, Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin, whereby holders of a degree in one institution could be admitted to the same degree in the others. George Edwin MacLean, in his 1917 report "Studies in Higher Education in England and Scotland" for the United States Department of the Interior, produced one of the first groupings of UK universities, and grouped Durham with Oxford and Cambridge. He wrote, The three institutions share, or are claimed to share, various characteristics used to justify the addition  of Durham to Oxbridge to form Doxbridge: Against this it has been argued that: Sport. The "Doxbridge Tournament" is the name of an unofficial inter-collegiate sports competition, held annually in Dublin. This was founded in 1998 and was originally contested by colleges from Oxford, Cambridge and Durham, later expanding to include colleges of the University of York. The "Doxbridge Cup" is a golf tournament held between teams from Oxford, Cambridge and Durham since 2008 as a prelude to the Varsity Match.