Sports awards honour 21 exceptional amateur sports people in Tipperary

Knocknagow Award winner Sean McLoughlin, Thurles Sarsfields (seated), with his former Tipperary hurling team mates Michael ‘Babs’ Keating, John O’Donoghue and Len Gaynor. Picture: John D Kelly

placeholder image — Knocknagow Award winner Sean McLoughlin, Thurles Sarsfields (seated), with his former Tipperary hurling team mates Michael ‘Babs’ Keating, John O’Donoghue and Len Gaynor. Picture: John D Kelly

Annerville awards presented by Tipperary United Sports Panel

Sportspeople in 21 different categories were honoured at this year’s presentation by the Tipperary United Sports Panel of the Annerville Awards, sponsored by Bulmers, to the county's amamteur sports stars of the year.

They included renowned former Tipperary hurler Sean McLoughlin, who received the Knocknagow Award, which each year is presented to a famous sportsperson of the past.

Sports Panel Chairman Eamonn Wynne said that Sean McLoughlin had made an exceptional contribution to a halcyon era for Tipperary hurling in the 1960s.

He had won four All-Ireland senior medals and two minor All-Irelands among a glittering array of honours.

Having played his early hurling with Rahealty, with whom he won a county minor championship medal, he joined Thurles Sarsfields in 1955, winning county junior honours before going on to collect the first of his county senior medals the following year.

From then until his retirement in 1972 he was an ever-present on the club’s senior side, winning senior medals from 1956-59, and again from 1961-65, nine in all.