The counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire are traditionally symbolized by the red and the white rose respectively, although some York teams play in gold and black kits.

[4] The first event happened on 15 May 1965 after the Vice-Chancellor of York, Lord James of Rusholme, suggested a boat race between the two universities.

[5] The students amplified this idea and held a 5-day event with a variety of sports: rowing, table tennis, relay race, mixed field hockey, and tug of war.

[4] In 1989, Roses celebrated its silver Jubilee with rugby, rowing, a boat race and tug of war some of the 30 sports.

[11] Esports were introduced to the tournament for the first time in 2016 in the form of League of Legends, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

[15][16][17] The first Roses following the COVID-19 pandemic saw the largest win margin of the tournament's history as Lancaster beat York 241 points to 102.

[53] In past years, croquet is usually played between "executive" teams comprising some combination of chancellors, vice-chancellors and Students' Union presidents, and does not contribute any points to the overall score.

Challenges of were judged by Lancaster SU Vice-President for Activities, Victoria Hatch and York Sport Union President, Maddi Cannell.

[60][61] The 'Opening Ceremony' for the tournament featured a number of video performances being uploaded to the Virtual Roses 2020 Facebook page on 1 May 2020.

Events took place in the form of a pentathlon consisting of a sprint, running, a static erg, a swim and a cycle between most uni sports teams and were live-streamed online.