Tony O’Doherty recalls the sensational St Columb’s College Hogan Cup victory 60 years on

PICTURED ABOVE: St Columb's were MacRory Cup and Hogan Cup winners in 1965 and the team included a well known retired teacher from Muff! St Columb's Squad: Standing - Malachy McAfee, Tom Quinn, Micky Trolan, C O'Doherty, Joe Cassidy, Harry McGill, (Bishop) Seamus Lagan 0-03, Brendan Dolan, 0-01. Seated - Eamon Small 1-03, Peter Stevenson, Chris Brown 0-02, Paddy McCotter capt. 0-01, Brendan Mullan 0-01, Michael P Kelly, Colum Mullan, L Nelis. In front - P Friel, Tony O’Doherty, Pat McGonagle, S Mellon.

‘Transported’ is the best description of Derry’s Tony O’Doherty as he reminisced about the June 1965 St Columb’s College Hogan Cup victory.

Obviously still thrilled about the significance of the team’s achievement 60 years on, Tony recalled the whole campaign as if it had taken place only last week. 

“When people ask me, ‘What’s your best memory?’ well I have an amazing choice. God has been very good to me, very good,” he told The Derry News.

“I could say playing at Wembley against England in front of 100,000 people in 1970. You can see me jumping up on George’s [Best’s] back, me with my long, black hair, in the YouTube footage. I played with George for two and a half years and was quite friendly with him. 

“I was on the bench against Russia in front of 20,000 people in the Lenin Stadium in Moscow.

“I played for Ballymena United against Roma in the national stadium in Rome, against the best player in the world at that time, a Brazilian called [Paulo Roberto] Falcão. He gave me his jersey after the match.

“But, all of them are not the same as winning the Hogan Cup. You can see I am still buzzing about it,” smiled Tony. 

The Hogan Cup was and is the premier post primary school Gaelic football competition in Ireland. St Columb’s College is the only school in the city ever to win the competition, a feat it never replicated.

In order to qualify for the Hogan Cup, St Columb’s first had to win the MacRory Cup - Ulster’s prestigious senior A grade inter-college Gaelic Football tournament. 

“We sailed through Ulster,” said Tony, “because we had a tremendous team. 

“You need to remember at this time we had boarders at the College so we had the pick of South Derry Gaelic players and Tyrone Gaelic players.

“The Ulster games to me were a blur because, and I don’t mean this in any bad way, but we were favourites in every game we played,” he added. 

St Columb’s enjoyed MacRory Cup victories over Abbey CBS, Newry; St Macartan’s, Monaghan; and St Michael’s, Enniskillen.

“And then we met the Hogan Cup favourites - St Jarleth’s College of Tuam, in County Galway,” recalled Tony.

“They had a guy, he was 18 years of age, he was a Galway senior player and he was supposedly the best player in the land - Jimmy Duggan, who went on to receive an All Star nomination later in his career. I scored two goals and three points that day, which put us in the Hogan Cup final. 

Press clippings from the St Columb's College Hogan Cup victory.

“Jimmy was invited to Derry for our 50th anniversary celebration,” laughed Tony, “and when he stood up to speak he said, ‘Forgive me for using certain language, Reverend Fathers, but we had everything sorted out and then you sent that ******* soccer player out!’

“The interesting thing about it was, I was also playing for  the Coleraine FC first team at the time. I was 17. I was technically still a schoolboy so the Rule 27 ban [which prohibited GAA members from participating in or attending ‘foreign games’ including soccer, rugby, hockey and cricket and was repealed in 1971] did not apply to me, much to the annoyance of some of the South Derry Gaelic heads. 

“A particular priest told everybody, the day and hour I finished at the College he would make sure I didn’t play again and he did that, which is why I didn’t feature in the Derry minor team that won the All Ireland Football Championship later in 1965,” said Tony. 

The first Hogan Cup final between St Columb’s College and Belcamp OMI of Dublin took place on May 11, 1965, in Ballybay in County Monaghan, where the semi-final had also taken place. The match ended in a draw. 

Lore has it, following the St Columb’s College MacRory Cup victory, team manager, Fr Ignatius McQuillen - who had played football for Fermanagh under an assumed name because at that time priests were not allowed to play - wrote to Croke park requesting the Hogan Cup semi-final be played in Ulster, as St Columb’s was a new team with no hope of beating St Jarleth’s, which had won the previous four finals!

After the match - Very Rev J Farren, President, and Mr Sean Moynihan, co-trainer of the victorious team, chat with Mr Tommy Gibben, the only Derry player to win an all ireland colleges medal before this (1965) year.

And history was surely made four weeks later when St Columb’s College won the replay.

The St Columb’s College’s victorious 1965 Hogan Cup team lined out as follows in the replayed final: Joe Cassidy (Derry), Michael Trolan (Ballinascreen), Brendan Doyle (Aghyaran), Michael P Kelly (Ballynascreen), Colum P Mullan, Malachy McAfee (Ballerin), Tom Quinn (Bellaghy), Harry Gill (Donemana), Peter Stevenson (Dungiven), Chris Brown (Bellaghy), Paddy McCotter (Captain - Kilrea), Tony O’Doherty (Derry), Brendan Mullan (Ballerin), Seamus Lagan (Glen), Liam Nelis (Urney).

Substitutes: Colm O’Doherty (Derry), Kieran McEldowney (Kilrea), Eamonn Small (Glen), Philip Friel (Sarsfields), Sean Mellon (Derry).

In the drawn game, Eamonn Small started at corner forward instead of Liam Nelis and was replaced by Pat McGonagle (Derry).

“There were two Derry City men on the team that started that day,” said Tony, “Joe Cassidy was the goalkeeper and I was left half forward.

“Our coach Fr Ignatius McQuillen was magnificent,” he added.

“He was years, years ahead of his time. In my opinion he was the Mickey Harte of his day or the Jim McGuinness.

“I played left half forward. In those days everybody stuck to a position - not me. Fr McQuillen said to me, ‘Go you on’ and it worked. But, if you think about it now, you were getting the best of Tyrone and the best of South Derry on that team, with one or two Derry City men thrown in.

“I imagine it was close to being the most alive time I have ever had in my life. It was absolutely incredible,” grinned Tony. 

It was a pleasure to interview Derry's Tony O'Doherty for today's @DerryNow piece on the sensational @ColumbCollege Hogan Cup victory 60 years on.
Asked about his feelings on the Hogan Cup win, Tony said: "Immensely proud, obviously. Let me put it this way, I have been very, very… pic.twitter.com/Tm9z36nNXe

— Catherine McGinty (@CathMcGin_Tea) July 17, 2025

“Every Saturday night before the big games, in Ulster and later on, you had to go to the College [the Lumen Christi site on Bishop Street today] for a briefing with Fr McQuillan,” he added.

“I can always remember walking down a pitch black Bligh’s Lane, well I ran everywhere in those days. We were living in Rinmore Drive in Creggan. In those days Bligh’s Lane was a country lane which still had country houses on the left-hand side. Then up the Dark Lane and down into the College.

“We had our briefing with Fr McQuillan and then it was run back up to Creggan. Fr McQuillan was way ahead of his time. He did all his homework. We just turned up to play. He knew who was who and what was what. He had done his research on all of the other teams. 

“It was a marvellous, marvellous time. I made great friendships. I would still meet Chris Brown, the brother of murdered Bellaghy GAA chairman, Sean Brown. There was a great buzz about the school the further we went on in the competitions. We knew there was something amazing happening. 

“Belcamp was like a mini Maynooth. They were really, really tough guys, big guys. There was incredible excitement going up the road to the game. We went in cars. The closest I have come to that feeling again was, many years later, going to the first Derry City FC matches. 

“When you left this city it was all the blue and yellow colours of St Columb’s the whole way up the road. You felt this incredible excitement.

“ You also felt you couldn’t let these people down,” said Tony.

The magnificent  St Columb’s Hogan Cup victory lives on in the collective memory. 

“People in town still stop me and chat about it,” said Tony. “I always say to Martin O’Neill, who was a younger pupil at St Columb’s at the time, ‘You would swap one of your European Cup medals for my Hogan Cup medal’

“God but Belcamp was a tough team. They were a dirty team. The match hadn’t started two seconds and , although I was never big I could always handle myself on the pitch, when this boy hit me in the jaw and I was certain my jaw was broken. He just outright thumped me. 

“I will never forget coming back to Derry after we won. The convoy of cars stretched for miles,” said Tony, who has since donated the medal he won that day to the College, where his grandson, Aaron O’Doherty is the current Head Boy, he said with evident pride.

Interestingly, according to Tony, the Head Boy of St Columb’s the year of the Hogan Cup victory was legendary Derry musician, Phil Coulter.