Matthew "Mattie" McDonagh (1936 – 11 April 2005) was an Irish Gaelic footballer who played for his local club Ballygar and at senior level for the Galway county team from 1956 until 1968. McDonagh later served as manager of the Galway team. He is the only man from Connacht with four All-Ireland Senior Football Championship winner's medals. Biography He sprung to sporting prominence as a teenager when he starred with Summerhill College, Sligo, where his colleagues remembered him from his striking stature as a youngster. Before he was 18 he had won the Connacht Colleges title and also won a Roscommon minor hurling medal with Ballygar. Big Mattie burst on to the national scene in 1956 when forming the midfield partnership with Frank Evers which provided the possession lifeline for the side which powered their way to a 2–13 to 3–7 All-Ireland final victory over Cork on the day that Seán Purcell and Frank Stockwell ran riot, Stockwell setting a scoring record of 2–05 from play. After the initial flush of success some lean years followed and Mattie had to bear the disappointment of two county final defeats with Ballygar at the hands of Tuam Stars and Dunmore McHales, the later by the narrowest of margins but the best was yet to come. McDonagh was one of the most influential players in the Galway teams of the 1960s. After Galway had been beaten by Dublin in the 1963 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, when Gerry Davey scored the controversial winning goal, the county under the stewardship of John Dunne, was to embark on their greatest ever run of success, winning three All-Ireland titles, beating Kerry in the first two and Meath in 1966 to complete the three-in-a-row, where Mattie McDonagh will be forever remembered in firing home ’left footed’ the only goal of the match in a 1–10 to 0–7 victory. McDonagh is the only Connacht player to have won four senior All-Ireland medals. He never shirked a challenge and took on the task of managing the Galway senior team in 1980 after a turbulent period when player power made the headlines in the county and a cool and respected head was needed to settle the ship. McDonagh, although fiercely competitive in every sport, was blessed with an easy temperament which helped him to assuage fears and tensions. One year later he led Galway to what turned out to be