Real delight for Galway’s biggest Madrid supporter

Real Madrid’s biggest fan in Galway had the best seat in the house for the Spanish giant’s recent win over rivals Sevilla – and he made the news on the club’s own television channel in the process!

Ethan Leonard was celebrating his ninth birthday in style, with the entire family – parents Fergal and Mairead, brother Charlie and sister Kate – enjoying a dream trip to the famous Bernabeu.

It was fitting reward for the Castlegar boy who goes to school in the Jes, because he too has shown the sort of battling qualities that would do justice to the Spanish legends.

Ethan suffers from McCune-Albright syndrome, a disorder that affects the bones, skin, and several hormone-producing tissues.

His dad Fergal explains that it means he has soft tissue in his bones with the result that he fractures easily – and recovery can take a long time.

“He’s had eleven operations over his nine years; and he has metal from his hip to his toe,” explained Fergal, a well-known estate agent in the city.

The metal implants strengthen his bones, but all this leaves Ethan confined to a wheelchair for long periods to minimise the impact on those bones; although that doesn’t hold him back in his sporting pursuits – particularly with the Galway Speeders basketball team.

But this time it was soccer that occupied the Leonards’ agenda, after an old family friend came up trumps with the wheelchair-access tickets.

Ethan and mum Mairead were given pitchside seats and, while watching the stars – Modric, Casemiro, Ramos – warming up, they were greeted by former Madrid and Liverpool defender Álvaro Arbeloa, who’d heard it was Ethan’s birthday!

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale now.