[3] He only made the switch to athletics during his Transition Year, having previously played Gaelic football for Letterkenny Gaels at under-age level.

[4] While a member of Letterkenny Athletic Club in his teens, he tested himself against the Gaelic footballer Caolan Ward.

[15] Later that year, English ran the 2nd quickest of all-time for 500m at the Great CityGames, finishing 2nd to 2016 Olympic 800m winner David Rudisha.

[17] Following this, the RTÉ analyst Jerry Kiernan (himself a former athlete) described English as historically the country's "greatest talent" in middle-distance running.

[18] Several years earlier, Kiernan had claimed that English was better than Michael Murphy — the All-Ireland winning football team captain long held to be his county's greatest ever athlete.