A WHILE back I spotted a comment on our Holy Trinity Facebook page from James Magee of the brilliant ‘Tales from the Ring’ boxing podcast.
His dad is former amateur and professional star Noel Magee, one of the fighting brothers in that famous north Belfast boxing family.
Commenting on our post listing the Ulster senior champions from 1988 to 1990, James said: ‘’It would be great to get the full list of Ulster Senior champions from over the years…'’
That set the ball rolling. There may be another complete list out there somewhere but I knew we’d gathered up loads of Irish and Ulster records over the years, and particularly during our club’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2022.
So, after a long, deep dive into the stats files, fact-checking, personalising many names and adding in pictures, here’s our results list, James.
Starting tonight (8pm) on Holy Trinity Boxing Club’s social media is the first in a series listing the winners of the Ulster senior and elite championships, division by division, stretching from 1929 to the present day.
This covers almost a century of fantastic final nights, the vast majority of which were staged at Ulster Hall, the heart of boxing.
The stats were amassed from a variety of sources beginning with the early days of Ulster senior championships contained on a few precious photocopies given to me by former Ulster Boxing president Pat McCrory (RIP).
Special mention, of course, must go to legendary Irish sports journalist Gerry Callan whose boxing record books and posts have proved invaluable down the years and feature in this Ulster compilation and also Holy Trinity’s Irish senior/elite Champions roll of honour.
The work of The Irish News sports journalists and my former colleagues, Neil Loughran, Andy Watters and the great Hugh Russell (RIP) also helped hugely over the years, as did the archives of the paper.
Special merit also to the boxing books of Belfast sports journalist Barry Flynn, which have helped us dig out many accurate details, and also to former IABA press officer Bernard O’Neill. The introduction of the women’s championship in 2010 enhanced and added another dimension to this prestigious event.
Since the early 2000′s there have also been several changes to weight divisions by boxing’s workd governing body in men and women’s categories, making the task of collating and placing boxers in a continuous and correct division a bit of a challenge.
So, apologies in advance for any slip-ups.
Thomas Hawkins - Holy Trinity ABC secretary and former Irish News sports editor
