Fenton: Closed doors not for me

Dubs star says prospect of October championship at empty venues would be ‘difficult’ for players

BRIAN FENTON says he is sceptical about the desire of inter-county players to play their championships behind closed doors this year.

It is over a week now since the Taoiseach raised the possibility of an All-Ireland being played in 2020, albeit with the major caveat that spectators will not be permitted.

There is only anecdotal evidence of players on both sides of the argument but the GAA’s official position is that, currently, no great appetite exists for an inter-county programme under those conditions.

“I play Gaelic football to hear that roar, to play in front of Hill 16, to play in front of my family and club-mates and Dublin fans,” Fenton stressed. “It would be funny, it would be certainly difficult.”

It may well come to pass that players are the ones who ultimately make that decision. As it stands, there is no timescale for a return of mass gatherings in Ireland or any European country.

And until a vaccine is available or the virus is almost completely suppressed, some risk of infection of athletes involved in contact sports will remain.

“I don’t know would it sell to players,” Fenton observed, in an interview as part of a new GPA/WGPA campaign with Pieta House.

“Obviously players have played in front of empty stands before but I don’t know if there would be the same interest if we were being told it was going to be behind closed doors.

“From a personal point of view, I would certainly prefer to be playing in front of a crowd than nobody at all.”

Whatever happens, there’ll be no championship until October at the earliest and Fenton admits he is enjoying the break while acknowledging how much he is missing the others around him in the history-making Dublin squad.

“Maybe I just took things for granted,” he admits, “thinking, ‘Aw, I’m always going to be with these lads, I’ll always see Stephen Cluxton, Ciarán Kilkenny and James McCarthy on a Tuesday and a Thursday’. Maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder, that sort of craic.

“How lucky you are to be part of that group and be friends with amazing people.”

Still, you’d venture Fenton’s underlying optimism has never been a more useful character trait than it is just now.

Like everyone with a vested interest in sport, Fenton has had to adjust his expectations.

“They cancelled the Olympics this year,” he recalls. “They’re cancelling all these big sporting events and you’re looking at it saying, ‘How can the GAA be the exception?’

“I know there is a bit of confusion and people were coming out during the week. But what can they do, only base it off the guidelines? It’s easy to say they should give us guidance. As a player, of course you would love that. It’s on or it’s off. ‘Be ready for this date’.

“But nobody is in a position to give that information.”

The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) and the Women’s Gaelic Players Association (WGPA) have partnered with Pieta, the mental health charity that provides free counselling nationwide to those experiencing suicidal ideation or self-harm, to promote a new ‘mental fitness’ campaign, R.E.S.T. The initiative is, encouraging people to donate to Pieta’s Darkness Into Light Sunrise, sponsored by Electric Ireland.