Kinnitty brothers make Irish sporting history
Two Offaly powerchair football players have made history in their chosen sport by becoming the first Irish internationals to sign with English premiership clubs.
Tom Donogher (24) and his 23-year old brother, Seán, from Kinnitty have been playing powerchair football for the past twelve years and have represented Ireland internationally on numerous occasions.
The sport-mad brothers, who were diagnosed with the muscle-wasting disease muscular dystrophy when they were aged six and five, and have been wheelchair users for many years, have signed with Nottingham and Norwich powerchair football teams, with Tom signing for Norwich and Sean signing for Nottingham.
Having played their powerchair football with their Irish club, Midlands United, since 2011, the talent of Tom and Sean Donogher soon became apparent to club officials, which resulted in them being selected on a number of occasions to represent their country internationally and ultimately being signed for English clubs.
The English powerchair premiership is one of the toughest leagues in Europe with 12 teams including some of the world’s top powerchair football players.
Tom and Sean will travel over to England for five weekends in the season to play in the highly skilled and fast paced league which promises to give them the opportunity to take their game to the next level.
The powerchair footballers are sons of Catherine and Michael Donogher, and have been full-time wheelchair users since 2011, with Tom getting his first manual wheelchair in January 2011 when he was just ten years old, and his brother following suit five months later. Their wheelchairs were upgraded to powerchairs later that year which made a huge difference to their lives and enabled them to attend school and get involved in powerchair football.
When the two brothers were diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, their younger brother, Luke, was also tested for the condition, but his tests came back clear.
The Donogher family are now looking forward to supporting Tom and Seán as they embark on an exciting new chapter in their footballing careers and aim to make a big impression in the challenging English premiership league.