St. Sylvester's earned a name in the early days.

Boxing No. 1 choice
It was in Boxing

The best boxer to come out of this school was Malcolm Bulner. He represented Sri Lanka at the Olympics and became the first to do so from this school, he was later selected to represent Australia in the next Olympic Games. He was deprived of achieving this feat for technical reasons. Malcolm Bulner who later became an Australian national, qualified as a world class boxing judge and officiated at several boxing meets in Australia.


Malcolm Bulner, a south paw, was the best boxer produced by Derrick Raymond, the famous coach, who passed away few years back in England. Malcolm won several national awards and titles in Sri Lanka before he migrated to Australia. His two brothers Noel and Clifford too were good boxers in lower weight categories.


Boxing was flourishing at St. Sylvester's, the Stubb's Shield Boxing competition, was a meet dominated by St Sylvester's.


The first Sylvesterian to win a national boxing title was Donald G. Labrooy the boxer who won the first national boxing title for the school. Donald at that time was shining in the Clifford Cup meets and was a strong claimant to represent Ceylon at the Olympics, the Bantamweight title in the early 1950's. Then there was Ellsworth Pereira, A.M. Nanayakkara, I.R. Hepponstall, Nihal Pelpolla, T.M. Pathirana, R. Aluwihare, Malcolm Marshal, Milroy Soysa, Annesly Soysa, M.E. Marikar to name a few.


This account of boxers is incomplete without mentioning the Master-in-Charge Roy Amarasinghe who was the architect of their victories at the Stubb's Shield competitions.
Boxing was a landmark of St. Sylvester's and in this respect their boxing coaches and masters should be complimented.


The other Sylvesterians who excelled in the ring were Nimal Lewke, one of the stylish boxers in the country who has won many bouts at national and International meets. Nimal was more than once adjudged the best boxer at national meets. He is now a Senior DIG of the Police, M. Reyal, A.C.R. Herathge, S.A. Azwer, H. Edwin, J. Peterson, C. Weerasinghe, T.S. Hassan, Derick Gunasinghe, M.Z. Abdeen, A. Thirukumaran, S.J. Sumanaweera, A. Amunugama.
Athletics: In the early 1940's when the school was only a few years old they produced an athlete who broke a public school record and was one of the country's crack sprinters.
The athlete was Felix Samarawickrema. Felix who later joined St. Joseph's College, Colombo lowered the Public School's 440 yards record with a timing of 51.8 sec. in 1948. At the same meet he won the 100 yards sprint. Felix was chosen to represent the country at the Empire Games in 1949 along with Duncan White but had to pull out due to a muscle injury and Vivan Blaze took his place.


Football popular


Football: That was another popular sport at St. Sylvester's from the inception in 1940 to late 1960's. They were in the forefront of Kandy schools football. Some played for the Central Province and the Country, the best among them were Mahinda Aluwihare who led the country on many times, he was rated as one of the beat mid field players in Asia.
Hockey: Most of hockey players have done well and they have been playing in tournaments from mid 1940's.
Cricket: In 1955, Sylvesterians made a modest beginning by playing a few inter-school matches. Their first inter-college match was against Vidyartha College, which is their big match now.
M.E. Marikar became the first Sylvesterian to play for many local cricket team at a time when St. Sylvester's College had not taken to cricket, he played for Moors SC, Sinha Regiment, Kandy Lake Club, Kandy Sports Club and Central Province, the next was M. Razak who played for Prisons.
It was Nihal Samarasekara who first played for the country, before we got Test status, Ishak Shabdeen was the fist Test player, then there was Nimal, a fine spinner who at one time was second in the Schools Bowling Averages.
Rugby: As in the field of cricket, Rugby football made a modest start in 1954. It should be remembered that Rugger, as it is commonly known, needs much practice.
There were some Sylvesterians who played club rugger without playing for the school, to name a few: Cyril Aluwihare, Hector Gallage, Sarath Basnayake, Gerard David, J. Jamilon, Lucky Peries, E. Peries, Nimal Lewke he is the man who went up in the game of rugby.
He played for Kandy SC, from there he played for Police SC led the side to win the Clifford Cup, and later played for the country, and became a top referee and coach, and had the privilege of being the national coach, and also headed the SLRFU and the Referees Society, and finally became the President of the SLRFU in 2007/8.