Their first recorded Eights campaign in 1840 started and ended at the bottom of the bumps chart ('footship'), and involved several days where the college failed to put out a crew.

Following this, New entered a boat in just two of the following 23 years of Eights, despite a rule that permitted them and other weaker colleges to form composite crews.

An improvement occurred in the late 1860s, as after decades of sporadic entries, New College entered crews for every Eights campaign from 1864 to 1867 and 1869 onwards.

A few years later, Eights performance also stabilised at a high level, when NCBC climbed to third place for the first time.

Magdalen, like New, finished in the top three at Eights without fail from 1886 to 1913: in each year, the clubs raced from adjacent bunglines and either threatened or achieved a bump on each other.

[1] The New College Boat Club represented Great Britain at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm and won the silver medal in the men's eight.

The course in Stockholm was not straight, and one of the two lanes was clearly favoured, the other requiring the cox to steer around a protruding boathouse and then back under a bridge.