DANCE captains at Oxford University decided to get strict in the ballroom when they discovered one of their star attractions wanted to dance for Cambridge.

Rosemary Coventry, 22, hoped to appear for the arch-rival in this weekend's Southern University Ballroom Dancing Championship because her dance partner and boyfriend, Ben Woolley, 21, studied at Cambridge.

Oxford's Dark Blues put their foot down and ruled that Miss Coventry could not dance for their Light Blue rivals.

They claim that the quick-step specialist is one of their own. She is a chemistry undergraduate at Trinity College and was secretary of the university's ballroom dancing club last year.

However, Miss Coventry insists she is eligible as a Light Blue because in October she enrolled on a management studies course at Cambridge. Mr Woolley was also a student at Oxford's Merton College before graduating with a first-class degree in mathematics. He then began a five-year veterinary studies course at Wolfson College, Cambridge. Miss Coventry said: "All I want to do is dance but I am taking the decision philosophically.Some things come and go but the most important thing is that no-one can take away my love of movement and dance."

Mr Woolley, who plans to marry Miss Coventry, added: "I believe we should be allowed to dance together. We've been training four nights a week, for at least two hours a night. It's not fair but the decision has now been made."

When Oxford captain Jo McPartland, a medical student at Christ Church, discovered Miss Coventry was planning to dance for Cambridge, she raised an immediate objection.

She said: "Rosemary was our club secretary last year and the next thing we know, she is trying to dance for Cambridge."

Cambridge captain Sonia Storr, 20, said the decision to bar Miss Coventry had been just but denied any ill-feeling would spread to the competition.

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