On 3 March 2019, English won a bronze medal in the 800 metres at the 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships. Following this, the RTÉ analyst Jerry Kiernan (himself a former athlete) described English as historically the country's "greatest talent" in middle-distance running. 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. Kiernan justified this remark with the comment: "[Murphy] is playing against lads from Monaghan. Mark English is running against Kenyans".