30 winning Ulster Colleges’ captains from the season just past were honoured at the Lagan Valley Island in Lisburn at the weekend as sponsors BT celebrated the achievements of the Ulster Colleges’ season. Tyrone defender and All-star nominee Davy Harte was guest speaker and he talked about his own involvement in Ulster Colleges’ football with Omagh CBS and how the lessons learned on the school playing pitch helped him in both their academic and sporting careers. He added though that he failed to pick up any medals during his spell in Omagh and praised the captains representing their teams at the awards ceremony. Davy said “You are the representative of your team’s and school’s achievement in competition against the best teams in Ulster.”

“You have however been selected by your mentors for your leadership qualities and that has given you the responsibility to set standards. Your team’s success means that you have met those standards and, like the Tyrone team, you have to set new standards for future years.”

St Mary’s Belfast picked up three hurling titles at the dinner, Cross & Passion preventing a clean sweep of all Grade A hurling Cups for the Glen Road school. And Davy was pleased to see success for a Tyrone school in hurling – Thomas Lowe captaining St Patrick’s Dungannon to the Year 11 knock-out title.

St Joseph’s Crossmaglen only entered Colleges’ competition for the first time last season and they made a winning debut with Ryan Conlon captaining them to the BT Herald Cup. On the other side of the scale St Colman’s Newry’s picked up both the BT Rannafast and Corn na nOg titles last year – surprisingly their first football trophies in almost a decade, while Donagh McAleenan captained cross-town rivals Abbey CBS to the BT Martin O’Farrell Cup.

Peter Morris, Director of Consumer & Corporate Services BT, added : "Our association with Ulster College GAA is one of our many important partnerships across the education sector and is part of our bigger commitment into the community on which we depend for our business success. “BT is delighted with our continuing association with Ulster College GAA. The 30 trophies awarded tonight make this an event which represents all age groups and importantly all abilities in college GAA sports. “Since BT started our association 8 years ago the number of affiliated schools has impressively grown to 48 and covers all 9 counties in Ulster, including secondary, grammar, integrated and community colleges.

“I commend all the captains here tonight that have successfully led their teams to victory during the past season."

Cup School Winning Captain

BT Martin O'Farrell Cup Abbey CBS Donagh McAleenan