Mal Donaghy Profile

Mal Donaghy

Malachy Mar­tin Don­aghy, born Bel­fast, North­ern Ire­land, Septem­ber 13, 1957. Mal Don­aghy began his foot­ball ca­reer wi­th Cromac Al­bion in the Ir­ish Am­a­teur Lea­gue in 1976. The cul­tured and de­pend­able de­fender joi­ned for­ces wi­th Ir­ish Lea­gue te­am Larne al­ready the fol­low­ing year, how­ever, af­ter be­ing spot­ted by then In­ver Park boss Bri­an Halliday.

At the end of the 1977–78 cam­paign, Mal Don­aghy was trans­ferred to Luton To­wn where he help­ed The Hat­ters win the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­on­ship in 1981–82 as well as the Lit­tle­woods Cup in 1987–88. Af­ter ap­pear­ing in over 400 lea­gue mat­ches for Luton To­wn, the strong and power­ful cent­ral de­fender was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by Al­ex Fer­guson for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £650,000 in Oct­ober 1988. And des­pite be­ing the wrong si­de of thirty, the Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager knew that in Don­aghy he had a cour­ageous and de­term­ined pro­fes­sion­al who would nev­er let him down. And al­though the ex­per­i­enced cam­paign­er fou­nd his fir­st te­am op­por­tun­it­ies some­what lim­ited at Man­chester Uni­ted, he non­ethe­less ma­naged to make well over 100 fir­st class ap­pear­ances for The Reds be­tween be­fore he joi­ned Ian Porterfield´s Chel­sea for a trans­fer fee in the re­gion of £100,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1992–93 sea­son. The Ul­ster­man went on to play a key role when The Blues fin­ished a re­spect­able 11th in the in­aug­ur­al Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue sea­son and he also help­ed the West Lon­doners reach the FA Cup Fi­nal in 1994, on­ly to lose 4-0 to no­ne oth­er than Man­chester Uni­ted. Af­ter ac­cu­mu­lat­ing 68 Pre­mier Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for Chel­sea, the aer­i­ally com­mand­ing stop­per de­cided to fin­ish a fine ca­reer at the end of the 1993–94 cam­paign and sub­sequently re­turned to his na­tive North­ern Ire­land where he had a short spell as man­ager at Ne­wry To­wn. A North­ern Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al, he amassed an im­press­ive 91 full caps for his na­tion af­ter ma­king his seni­or de­but in a 1–0 Brit­ish Ho­me Cham­pi­on­ship win over Scot­land at Wind­sor Park in Bel­fast on the 16th of May 1980. Don­aghy played his last mat­ch for The Green and White Army in a 3–0 friendly loss to Mex­ico at The Miami Or­ange Bowl on the 11th of June 1994. Mal Don­aghy Play­ing Ca­reer: Cromac Al­bion, Larne, Luton To­wn, Man­chester Uni­ted, Luton To­wn, Chel­sea. Play­ing Hon­ours: Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Sec­ond Di­vi­sion 1982, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup 1988, Eng­lish FA Char­ity Shield 1990, UEFA Euro­pean Cup Win­ners Cup 1991, UEFA Euro­pean Su­per Cup 1991.

UNITED FEATURES UNITED REPORTS UNITED REVIEWS UNITED STORIES

Front Page