At club level he had success with Tullamore and was a two-time All-Ireland Senior Football Championship winner with the Offaly county team.
He made his senior debut in 1970 in a tournament game played at Wembley Stadium and won his first All-Ireland Championship the following year after coming on as a substitute in the final against Galway.
Fenning claimed a second successive winners' medal in 1972 after scoring a goal from 50 yards in the All-Ireland final replay defeat of Kerry.
He was named Offaly Person of the Year in 2011 in recognition of his management of a number of projects, among them helping erase the debt on Tullamore's GAA social centre; raising €200,000 to purchase a CT scanner for the local hospital as well as supporting an arts centre and municipally-owned swimming pool in Tullamore.
[citation needed] Fenning died aged 69 on 15 May 2020, having been diagnosed with motor neuron disease the previous year.