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The Ulster Senior Football Championship is the premier Gaelic football "knockout" competition played in the province of Ulster in Ireland. The series of games are organised by the Ulster Council and are played during the summer months, and all the counties participate. It is regarded as the most competitive of the four provincial football championships, even though only three teams have won it since 1999. Cavan are the most successful team in Ulster Championship history, having won the competition on 39 occasions. Fermanagh remain the only team not to have won an Ulster title.
For many decades, winning the Ulster Senior Football Championship was considered as much as a team from Ulster could hope for, as the other provinces would usually be much stronger and more competitive. In particular, before 1990, only Cavan in 1933, 1935, 1947, 1948 and 1952, and Down in 1960, 1961 and 1968, had won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship title. In the 1990s however, a significant sea change took place, as the Ulster Champions won the All-Ireland four years in a row from 1991–1994.
Nowadays the Ulster Senior Football Championship is considered one of the toughest provinces to compete in, and Ulster teams have gained considerable dominance on the All-Ireland scene, having won three All-Irelands from four in the early 2000s, including in 2003 when for the first time ever, the All-Ireland Football final was competed for by two teams from one province – Ulster. The Ulster football Final is played in July, normally at St. Tiernach's Park in Clones; however, from 2004 until 2006, it was staged at Croke Park in Dublin. The 2007 final, contested by Monaghan and Tyrone, marked a return to Clones with Tyrone emerging victorious.
In the 2000s, Armagh became a dominant force in Ulster, winning six titles in seven years between 1999 and 2006. However, they have since been usurped—since being defeated by Armagh in the 2010 Championship, Donegal have won consecutive Ulster titles from the preliminary round (a feat achieved by no other county) and they added the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship to this in 2012.
Format
Current format
The Ulster Senior Football Championship is run on a knock-out basis in which once a team loses they are eliminated from the competition, and so compete in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship qualifier series. The Ulster Senior Football Championship winner enters the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship at the quarter-final stage.
Historic format
Before the introduction of the qualifier series in 2001, the winner of the Ulster Senior Football Championship would compete, along with the other three provincial winners, in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-finals, with the two winners competing in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.
