EAMON FENNELL ISN’T your average GAA player.
Last year the Dublin footballer appeared on TV3′s Take Me Out programme in which he courted the show’s single ladies with a magic trick involving a hamster.
And indie music fans in the capital will be familiar with his Sunday evening show on Phantom FM.
“At the start I was just trying to break into it and I didn’t really know if radio was the right way to go,” Fennell told reporters at Croke Park yesterday ahead of this weekend’s Leinster SFC clash against Wexford at HQ.
“I’m loving it and I love going into the show on Sundays. I got to cover Forbidden Fruit on the Monday after the game. Phantom have been very good to me when it comes to playing football. It’s just the Sunday’s that I’m not playing. I won’t be going in after the game this Sunday! Live feed from Coppers!”
The midfielder has now turned his focus to a new business venture — though he insists he’ll now be distracted from his bid to pocket a second All-Ireland medal this September.
“I’m after setting up my own TV company, selling beauty products and flat shoes in nightclubs,” the St Vincent clubman said. “TV3 heard about it and asked me would I go on their show, I said yeah at time but I never knew the demands of filming were so high. They told me I had to miss training but I just couldn’t do it. I’m not going to jeopardise my position for some TV show. Playing for Dublin is something I’ve always wanted to do and it’s hard to get into the team. I’m starting and I’m not going to jeopardise that.
“If I missed training because of a TV show, Pat wouldn’t take to it too kindly. It was a no brainer not to do it,” he added.
The company, called Trix’n'Trax, produces shoes for night-clubbing ladies which he’ll sell around the city and Fennell admits the work-life balance is sometimes difficult to maintain.
He says: “To an extent yeah. But I’ve made a few mistakes in the past and I know when to stop now. I won’t do anything the week of a game or in the build-up to a massive training game.
“I concentrate on what I have to do. I’m a little bit nervous about the new company but it’s good to do. It’s something that I always wanted to do as well, work for myself. I’m looking forward to it in that regard. It’s only up and running a month now. Once this championship game is finished I can go into the nightclubs and sell the products. It takes up a massive portion of my time. It’s a lot of evening work and then I’ve to get the beauty products during the day then as well. The GPA have been brilliant as well with business programmes.”
And often being the target of the slagging within the Dubs’ dressingroom, Fennell was happy for Denis Bastick to take centre-stage with his wife on Franc’s DIY Brides on RTÉ last weekend.
“I don’t think he’ll be doing another one anyway,” Fennell laughed. “I missed it because my [radio] show was on. The lads gave him a good ribbing in the dressing-room and it was good to get the attention off me for a change.”
