Sylvestrians to restore past glory in boxing

Old Sylvestrians Sports Club under the presidency of U.S.K.Kodituwaku, Secretaryship of G.G. Hewamathes and rest of the supporting committee members will felicitate the boxers of St. Sylvester’s College who did well to win the T.B. Jaya meet after many years. Old Sylverstrains SC team is very proud of the performance at this meet. St. Sylvester’s College has a great future in boxing. The felicitation ceremony will be held today Thursday at Eco-Lorgd Restaurant hall at 5.30 pm.

Now the stylish boxers are hard at training and getting ready for the famous Stubbs Shield meet, which is the oldest boxing tournament of our country is an Inter-Schools Meet. This year’s contest will be worked off on 22nd to 25th at Royal College ring. Stubb Shield has a proud history, it was the British Tea-Planter S.C. Trail who realised that boxing could be made popular and be wide-spread throughout the country by introducing an All-Island Inter Schools Championship Tournament.

He met the British Colonial Secretary of Ceylon then, (later the Governor) Sir. R. Edward Stubbs and obtained his permission to present a challenge shield in Sir Stubbs’ name at a championship boxing tournament. The inaugural meet was held at Royal College Hall in July 1914 and Trinity College Kandy won the First Championship.

Sylvester’s College coach Bandulla Vithana Gamage has done a great service to elevate the standard of college boxing. He is one of the top and fearless boxers produced by St. Sylvester’s College, Kandy, winning his colors at St. Sylvester’s College, Police, Central Province, the YMCA and at the nationals a number of years. And the other coach is T.B.J.G. Bandara both have guide this school in the correct way and also the MIC S. Sivaneshan has done his best with superb support from out of the ring. The medal winners at this meet were R. Krishanthan, T.M.I.D. Thenakoon and M. Shaheed were Gold Medlist, and the Silver medalist is T.M.R.L. Thenakoon and the Bronze medal winner is M.M.R.P. Bandara and the best boxer’s award was pocketed by T.M.I.D. Thenakoon. And K.M.G. Mahegedera and P.U.D.S. Vithange too did well though couldn’t win a medal.

St. Sylvester’s College, who are celebrating their 83rd year remains as the one and only school in the country if not in the world to have produced a boxer who was selected to represent two different countries at two different Olympic Games – that is boxer Malcolm Bulner. He represented Ceylon at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and was later selected to represent Australia. He also boxed for the country at the Empire Games in Perth and the Asian Games in Bangkok. Bulner a south paw was the best boxer produced by Derrick Raymond the famous coach.

Some products produced by Derrick Raymond were Nimal Lewke now a retired DIG who was also a stylish boxer and brought honor to the country at several meets locally and internationally, A.C.R. Herathge, M. Reyal, S.A. Azwer, H. Edmund, J. Peterson, D.C. Weerasinghe, T.S. Hassan, Derick Gunasinghe and N.Thirukumar.

The first Sylvestrian to win a national boxing title was Donald G. Labrooy who won the Bantam Weight title in early 1950’s. He was followed by Malcolm, Marshal, Milroy de Soysa, Anslem de Soysa and M.E Marikar. Boxing was synonymous with St. Sylvester’s which was in the forefront of schools boxing winning the coveted Stubbs Shield several times – within fourteen years they won on 12 occasions.

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