Punching our way to victory: Regaining the Stubbs Shield

By Vimuth Dewmina

In the world of sports, there are few narratives more compelling than the triumphant return of a team that has endured years of hardship and heartache. The sweet taste of victory becomes all the more satisfying when it comes after an excruciatingly long wait, as fans and players alike hold onto their dreams through years of adversity.

This is the story of one such triumphant return, a tale of perseverance and redemption that saw a team secure a trophy after three decades. The trophy is the much coveted “Stubbs Shield.” It is a well-known fact that Royal College holds the highest number of wins to date, across five decades, despite winning the shield in 2017 after 30 years.

When I first came to take on the sport our aim was to win a Stubbs Shield Gold. For a Royal Boxer, winning a Stubbs Shield Gold was and is the ultimate triumph.

For 30 years, the Royal Boxing Team had been on a quest for the trophy, with our players experiencing a roller-coaster of emotions.

People still talk about how, in the 1990s, Vidyartha won the Shield back-to-back seven times. In doing so they broke our record of the highest win streak of four years, from 1944 to 1947. Royal won the shield since 1935, and the team never backed down from winning it regularly thereafter. Though Trinity led the charts in the first 30 years, Royal got the upper hand in the late 1950s, producing some very remarkable boxer.

In the early 2000s, our team was fabulous. We personally know how good our Royal Boxers were in that era. We missed the Stubbs Shield in 2004 by one point.

How many times had we come close to winning it, only to fall short, leaving a bitter taste behind! Yet the team and its supporters remained unwavering in their commitment, always believing that their patience and dedication would pay off.

After a long time, we had a fresh start in 2014. That year the team produced the youngest two colours men from any sport in the College charts. It seemed like we were back to winning medals. Yet still the Stubbs Shield still looked like a tough task for us.

In 2015, Royal achieved one gold and two silvers at the Shield. We missed the top slot again.In 2016 we saw much better performance. We won two golds, two silvers, and one bronze, clinching fourth place and bouncing back to the top five teams after a decade.

We never lost sight of our goal. However, we were held back by a series of unfair decisions. In one instance, one of our teammates scored three counters against the opponent. The rules of the game clearly state that a match should end when the team strikes two counters in the same round. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

The fight was clearly hijacked by the judges. We still remember the pin drop silence when the results were announced. The opponent had been offered a victory, yet even he didn’t celebrate it, since he knew what had gone into the final results.

The atmosphere was hence electric when the Stubbs Shield season came around in 2017. We were clearly the favourites on the big stage.

All the eight players were doing extremely well. Of course, everyone fought and fought their hearts out. Slowly but surely, they formed a new record after 11 long years, gathering all eight boxers into the semifinals. And six out of eight went into the finals where no opponent could not take us down. After so many decades, we had made it.

Having won four Golds, two Silvers, and two Bronzes Royal regained the glory back after 30 years. Among the prizes, we won the award for the Most Scientific Boxer. It was the topic of the season among Royalists for a long, long time.

And Royal never backed up after that. Certainly, we had regained a Golden Era. But we needed to do more.

Unluckily for us, we emerged as Runners-Up the following year. In 2019 we managed to get six finalists in the lineup. It seemed like the Shield would be ours again. However, we could grab only three Golds and three Silvers while St Sylvester’s got four Golds.

During the 2017-2019 season we also had six international representations, something almost unprecedented for the Royal Team. Five of those six occasions were delegations to Europe, where we faced players from the UK, the US, and so on.

All of this came with a price. It was a price we paid, and we were willing to pay.It is apt here to express our heartfelt gratitude for all the support and guidance we have been provided throughout our journey to victory.

Our seniors, coaches, sponsors, well-wishers, parents, principal, Senior Games Master, Teacher in Charge, and other teachers, as well as the Royal Boxing Club have remained unwavering in their support for us.

This victory belongs to all of us at Royal College, and we share this triumph as a team.Ours is a story that has to be told for generations to come. It is essentially a symbol of hope, perseverance, about the true endurance of the Royal Spirit.

Vimuth Dewmina is an undergraduate at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. A four-time school national champion, and three-time national representative, he captained the Royal College Boxing Team in 2020. He can be reached at vimuthdew56@gmail.com.