Fenton shoots for Champions crown

Sep 6 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

FORMER Premiership football star Graham Fenton goes into The Journal Champion of Champions tomorrow week insisting he has a chance of winning despite playing golf off a handicap of four.

That would mean a six-stroke swing against the elite plus-two handicappers in the field for the scratch 36-hole tournament. But Fenton (pictured right), now assistant manager of Blue Square North team Blyth Spartans, has this year won the Whitley Bay club championship for the third year running and last year he showed encouraging form in The Champions at De Vere Slaley Hall.

Fenton finished in a six-way tie for fifth position – alongside the likes of County Durham superboy Callum Tarren – when the event returned after an eight-year gap over 18 holes. He was on track for the runner-up spot until piling up three bogeys over the last four holes on the Priestman Course.

Fenton, 34, said yesterday: “This year I have not been able to play anything like as much golf as I would like. The weather has been poor and Blyth going back into pre-season training in June only left about six or seven weeks.

“I managed to fit in our club championship and a couple of away games for Whitley Bay’s Newcastle & District League team at Arcot Hall and Newcastle United. Before our club championship I went to my coach, John McKenna, at Tynemouth, for a check-up on my swing and he spotted one or two things.

“So I think I’ll be giving him a call to see if he can take a quick look again before the Champions.

“The swing seems to be going okay and, if I can putt well at Slaley, I reckon I stand a chance of winning it.”

Having triumphed in all four of their home fixtures this season, scoring three goals on each occasion, Blyth have away matches today and next Saturday – at Vauxhall Motors and Stafford Rangers – and Fenton added: “I wish there had been a home match next week.

“I would have liked to have got in a serious practice session the day before Slaley, but I’ll just have to try to squeeze in some sessions during the week leading up to it.”

As a footballer, Fenton was once the scourge of Newcastle United, whose fans will never forget his contribution to their blow-up in the title race of 1996, when the Magpies lost a 12-point lead to Manchester United. Newcastle were leading 1-0 at Blackburn, through a goal by David Batty, when Fenton, brought up in Whitley Bay and a United fan himself, scored twice in the last five minutes to give Rovers a 2-1 victory.

Two years earlier, the England Under-21 international played in the Aston Villa side who beat Manchester United 3-1 in the League Cup final at Wembley to deny the Devils the domestic treble.

His progress in golf has been helped enormously by McKenna, one of the coaches involved when Northumberland won the Northern Counties League in 2006 for the first time in 17 years.