Brian Fenton of Dublin with his PwC GAA/GPA Footballer of the Year award for 2020.
By John Harrington
Greatness is usually only conferred on a player after they have hung up their boots, when the full body of their work can be gauged and appreciated in its totality.
But, occasionally, very special footballers and hurlers come along who are so outstanding in real-time that they’re acknowledged as greats while still in the thick of their career.
Names like Jack O’Shea, Pat Spillane, Mikey Sheehy, Matt O’Connor, Peter Canavan, Colm Cooper, Stephen Cluxton, DJ Carey, Brian Whelahan, Nicky English, Tommy Walsh, and Henry Shefflin immediately come to mind.
If you were to elevate a current player to that rarefied company, it’s difficult to look beyond Dublin midfielder, Brian Fenton.
Usually midfielders take some time to learn their trade and mature both in terms of their physicality and ability to read the play, but Fenton was that rare beast who was immediately to the manor born.
He excelled in his first championship campaign in 2015, winning Man of the Match in that year’s All-Ireland Final, and has been the best midfielder in the country by a considerable margin ever since.
He has already won five PwC All-Stars and two Player of the Year Awards while still having, you’d suspect, at least another five years of inter-county football ahead of him.
He has said himself that he intends to play for Dublin for as long as he can because of a burning ambition to be the best that shows no sign of cooling despite all he has already achieved.
Brian Fenton of Dublin catches a high ball during the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Dublin and Mayo at Croke Park in Dublin.
And though he’s one of the most humble high achievers you could meet, he doesn’t mind admitting either that winning individual honours like PwC All-Stars and Player of the Year awards mean a lot to him.
“At the start of the year you don't sit down and write in your own diary, 'I'm going to win Player of the Year', certainly not,” said Fenton after winning the PwC Footballer of the Year award for the first time in 2018.
“But it is one of those awards that you dream of as a kid and dream of as you grow up.
“You can see the stars, the names through history, that are winning the awards along the way. I recently went back through the list of the years of players who had won Player of the Year and the talent and the pure magic in that list alone was something very, very special.
“So, yeah, it's something that you would have dreamed of as a kid so to win one and be picked amongst my peers as well is just so humbling and special and something I'll never forget for a long, long time."
Fenton is the complete midfielder. His natural athleticism gives him an almost unfair edge on most opponents, he’s a clinical finisher in attack, his ability to read the play makes him a huge asset defensively, and he’s also one of the most spectacular fielders of the ball in Gaelic Football right now.
Has he already overtaken Kerry’s Jack O’Shea as the greatest midfielder to ever play the game?
Fenton’s father, a Kerry-man himself, isn’t so sure!
“I'm constantly reminded that I wouldn't lace Jacko's boots,” laughs Fenton.
“That's what I'm told at the dinner-table, anyway. Ah look, I remember standing outside Jimmy O'Brien's bar years ago before a Munster Final and Jacko walked by and I just thought he was floating on air.
“I obviously never saw him play but he was always the gold standard and benchmark and historically the best footballer and midfielder of all time. To even be in the same sentence as him is just very, very incredible.
“No matter what level you get to or how many All-Irelands you win, there are still comparisons to the Kerry team or a Kerry player and how you wouldn't even compete against them!
“That's just going to be the narrative I'll have to put up with for the foreseeable. But, look, it's part and parcel of what keeps you grounded and keeps you focused and having a little bit of a chip on your shoulder to say, "Right, let's go one better".
“Look, Jack O'Shea was by all accounts the best player ever, so even to be described in the same company as him is a great privilege and honour.”
Brian Fenton pictured collecting his PwC Footballer of the Year award for 2018.
Having lost his first ever Championship match for Dublin (after 46 unbeaten) against Mayo in this year’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final, it’s a safe bet that Fenton will come back hungrier than ever in 2022.
Even in years when he’s won an All-Ireland title and been crowned the best footballer in the country, Fenton has convinced himself he could have done better.
He constantly keeps notes about where his game is at and where he wants it to get to, the very definition of a sportsperson with a growth mindset.
“Oh yeah, always,” said Fenton. “It's regular. Weekly and monthly and yearly. Just little notes in the diary. I'd say if anyone read it now it would be gibberish, like Leonardo da Vinci backwards writing!
“Yeah, it's just little goals and plans and to-do lists, but it's always football-focused. You know, what am I going to do this week for my skills? What am I going to do this week for my recovery?
“And, you know, bigger goals. At the start of the year you might say, look, you want to start and improve and to have an impact on a game, to hit a certain distance in a game.
“Things that are measurably that you can tick off or x off. Unfortunately there are more x's than ticks, but you have to always set a benchmark for yourself, I think.”
The benchmark he has set already is remarkably high, but in the quest for greatness you suspect there’s even more to come from the Dublin midfielder in the coming years.
