Annual Awards Ceremony

By: Dan Humphrey
Date: 03/01/2002

DAN HUMPHREY takes a look at the highs and lows of 2001 (there were plenty of each!) and chooses his winners (and losers) in various categories of excellence and calamity.

First up, the most obvious award of all: The Fishy's Player of the year award!!!

And the winner is......... Mr.Danny Coyne! Unanimously.

Danny also takes the Goalie of the Year Award and the Most Under-rated Player of the Year Award.

Next, we have a slightly more difficult category, which is sort of related to our Player of the Year....it is the Plonker of the Year award!

Every year the likes of Trevor Francis and Steve Bruce are contenders for this. Just to amuse us, they even swapped jobs this year.... Well, I laughed. But despite the intense competition for this honour, with late surges from David 'Mr.Moaner' O'Leary and his book, and Arsene 'The Worthington Cup is rubbish now we are out of it' Wenger.... the winner has to be the manager of Wales.

Step forward Mark Hughes, and explain to us HOW Mark Crossley and Roger Freestone are rated above our very own Coyne?!?

Continuing on a negative note, the third award of the evening is the 'inflatable' Harry Haddock Let-Down of the Year.

The nominees in this category are:

• 1. The 3rd minute goal at Highbury

• 2. The tactical errors of Lennie Lawrence

• 3. The low attendances of Blundell Park

• 4. Being 2nd bottom at Xmas after topping the table in September

The winner is....... the 4th nominee. One win in 20! This must merit some sort of dubious award, and we will post the award on to the new Director of Football at Cardiff, Mr.Lawrence. Although, if he sends it back, we'll just give it to the stay-away fans, who only turn up in Cup ties.... :-)

Remaining negative for a minute or so longer, what about our next category, The One That Got Away Award...... Its a tie here between Stoke's Peter Handyside and Barnsley's Kevin Donovan, both showing that there is life after Blundell Park, and both looking likely to be enjoying Division One football next season. A late entrant was Nicky Southall, last seen on 'The Premiership' for Bolton against Liverpool. Except that was New Year's Day, so he is disqualified.

Now for another new section, the Brian Laws 'What happened there?' prize, especially named after a manager who could not work out why his Mariners' teams kept giving goals away. The Fishcake has chosen to disqualify THAT Phil Jevons goal at Anfield, as otherwise it would just win too many of these awards. So the close contenders here are:

• a) This season's disastrous defeats at the hands of: Rotherham, Walsall etc..

• b) Paul Groves' own-goal at home to Wolves

• c) The unexpected (but deserved) wins at the end of last season against WBA and Fulham

The winner though was the fluke-goal of the season - by the amazingly inconsistent Menno Willems... Straight from a corner, and to the Sheffield United 'keeper's knee or thigh and suddenly Town were on the scoresheet. I was going to say back in the game, but that would be inaccurate....

Due to the Mariners' financial short-comings, we won't be able to hand out too many awards so there aren't too many left. Here's another one with few real contenders, the Young Player of the Year. Some of our youngsters, such as Phil Jevons and Danny Butterfield have been forced into more action than they would have expected due to injuries and our small squad, whereas the likes of Chris Thompson and Simon Ford have only just broken through. So despite Jevo's reasonable goal tally, and Danny B's decent performances at right-back, and Anfield goal-line clearances, its really a two-horse race. Johnny Rowan or Ben Chapman???

Hard to call, but to be fair, Chapman takes the MOST IMPROVED player award, for his displays in November and December and Rowan takes the YOUNG PLAYER award for his efforts in August and September.

As we near the end, its time to give Phil Jevons' goal against Anfield an award. A special one-off 'Roy Of The Rovers' Fairytale award goes to Jevo, for giving us all a moment to fondly recall for years to come, against a club that decided he wasn't good enough! How about Everton at Goodison in the Cup so he can try for a unique double?

For all us optimists, its the pleasant surprise of the year award..... and the winner here is Michael Boulding, or more specifically the pace of Michael Boulding. He seems to be the ideal substitute, terrifying tired defences. Now if he could just finish a bit better.....

Finally: Loanee of the year: this is one for all you guys to vote on: The Fishy will do this as a question of the week soon, so here's a brief run down of some of the top contenders: