St. Sylvester’s College, who are celebrating their 80th year have conducted a 9-a-aside hockey tournament a few days ago, and next will be a football tournament followed by other sports. This school is situated in the heart of the seat of ancient Sinhala Kings and remains as the one and only school in the country if not in the world to have produced a sportsman who was selected to represent two different countries at two different Olympic Games - boxer Malcolm Bulner.
Bulner was the eldest of the famous Bulner brothers. He represented Ceylon at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and was later selected to represent Australia at the following Olympic Games. But was deprived of achieving this rare feat owing to technical reasons. Now he is an Australian national later qualified as a World Class Boxing Judge and officiated at several boxing meets in 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 who was in England and passed away a few years back. Bulner won several national titles before migrating to Australia. His three brothers Michael, Noel and Clifford too were good fighters in the lower weight class.
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.
St. Sylvester’s continues to produce boxers, cricketers, footballers, hockey players, athletes, ruggerites, chess, table tennis, and basketball players. In the early days St. Sylvester’s was entitled to use the Police Barracks. The pint sized ground was expanded with the help of Sylvestrian students and also the Principal of Trinity College permitted the Sylvestrians to use the Asgiriya Grounds for athletic practices and sports meets free of charge.
In athletics, Sylvestrians produced an athlete who broke a public schools record and was one of the country’s crack sprinters. Felix Samarawickrema, who later crossed over to St. Joseph’s College lowered the Public Schools 440 yards record with a timing of 51.8 seconds in 1948. At the same meet he won the 100 yards sprint with a timing of 10.6 seconds. Samarawickrema was picked to represent the country at the Empire Games in 1949 along with Trinity College’s Duncan White. But had to pull out due to a muscle injury and Vivian Blaze took his place.
Football was another popular sport from 1940’s to 1960’s. Some of them played for the country and others for Kandy, Up-Country and work places. Among them were Mahinda Aluwihare the first Sylvestrian to lead the country.
In the recent years they have been many at cricket. It was M.E. Marikar who first played premier cricket without playing for the school, he was followed by Abdul Razak. After they started cricket, it was people like Mervyn Rodrigo the first Sylvestrian to win the outstations schoolboy award, Wasantha Basnayake, Nihal Samarasekara who was the first to play for the Ceylon before Sri Lanka gained Test status, Malcolm Perera who hit the highest spot in coaching, though he did not play for the country, Roland Perera, who coached the side in 1994 to become league champions for the first time, Ishak Shabdeen who was the first to play for the country after gaining Test status, Janaka Pathirana.
In hockey they have produced top teams and players, coaches and administrators. Hockey was one of the oldest sport at this school.
Most of the products have done their best in this sport by representing Combined Schools, Kandy and the country.
Though rugger is new, some of the Sylvestrians who played club rugby without playing for the school are Malcolm Marshal, Cyril Aluwihare, Hector Galuge, Sarath Basnayake, Gerard David, Tony Direckz, Nimal Lewke, Hafiz Marikar, M. Jamilon, Vasantha Ratnayake, Anton Fernando and Manjla Pathirane who became the first to play for the combined school after rugger was started.
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