Memories of golden era will live long on College Road as Noel Healy gets ready to leave UCC 

When the full-time whistle goes on Sunday afternoon at Richmond Park, Noel Healy’s time as UCC manager will end following their game with St Patrick’s Athletic in the FAI Cup.

That will draw a definitive line for one of the most celebrated periods on College Road, which lasted 15-years and includes four Collingwood Cups and three Premier Division titles in the Munster Senior League.

In between there were various cups, while graduates stepped up and moved on to better things. 

Sean McLoughlin leads the pact following his spells with Cork City and Hull City in the EFL Championship.

For Healy, it all ended domestically with a frantic play-off run that made sure UCC avoided relegation through the play-offs and kept their top flight status intact for another year, a 14th season in the Premier Division.

And on Sunday, it will be fully confined to history as UCC start finalising the process of selecting a new manager.

With this comes interpretation, and history lessons from a club that found its own under Healy after he was brought in to work as John Caulfield’s assistant.

Before all of that – success was defined by the Collingwood Cup while the thought of competing at the highest level of the Munster Senior League was a far off dream for club that was constantly recycling players as they go through the college system.

Even at that – the holy grail of inter-varsity football was often a good bit out of reach with the first title coming as late as 1974, and that failed to act as a catalyst towards greater things on College Road.

The Collingwood later visited in 1978 and 1986, with back-to-back victories achieved between 1990-91. 

The golden era followed at the dawn of the new millennium as UCC managed to lift the trophy four times in a row, accumulating in a 3-0 victory over UCD at UL.

If this was as good as it got, what came next would have seemed like a dream under Caulfield and Healy.

They started by bringing the Collingwood back to UCC after a six year tour across the country, and that sparked an era of success never before seen on College Road.

The feel good factor carried into the Munster Senior League, with Caulfield and Healy winning promotion to the Premier Division during the 2011-12 season.

Things got better when the former left to take over Cork City, with UCC going on to lift their first top-flight title during the 2013-14 campaign.

That was helped by an arbitration hearing awarding the College two extra points, but any lingering questions over what it meant were answered in 2015 as Healy masterminded a run to the quarter finals of the League of Ireland Cup by overseeing victories over Wexford Youths and Cobh Ramblers.

That complimented another Collingwood, which acted as part of UCC’s first ever inter-varsity treble as they also won the Crowley Cup and Harding Cup.

Their next victory at that level was the beginning of a double, as Healy led the team to a victory over Cobh Wanderers in a title decider on the final day of the 2016-17 Premier Division season.

They repeated this in 2019, in addition to defeating Avondale United in the O’Connell Cup decider.

Those days out were bookended by other victories locally, while players progressed as they graduated and left the college system. 

Michael McSweeney was the first, as the defender went on to play and win the FAI Cup with Cork City in 2016. 

McLoughlin took it to another level by helping his local club win the double and getting a move to England. Rob Slevin, Gordon Walker, and Matthew McKevitt have also enjoyed League of Ireland careers with the Rebel Army, Cobh Ramblers, and Galway United.

It's a lot to take in and to summarise, and Healy maybe summed it up the best during an interview with The Echo before the 2025 edition of the Collingwood Cup, held at The Mardyke.

“The annual lunch we have every year. They bring back teams from five, ten, fifteen, even twenty to 25 years ago,” he said.

"There is a reunion. And the unusual thing about these tournaments is that they gel people quite a bit, and winning a Collingwood is just the bees-knees in terms of college terms.

This is what this all is, the highlight of people’s sporting lives and the best of days when a person is at their freest. 

Healy made this happen, and what did happen will not soon be forgotten at UCC or around The Mardyke.