EDEN HAZARD: PLAYER OF THE YEAR BUT ONLY SECOND BEST YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR
The Fiver is no great fan of individual awards being handed out to participants in a team sport, but is prepared to make an exception when the the ultimate destination of those gongs is decided by the winner’s peers. And the fans. And the football writers, even though the Fiver’s ballot paper and invitation to their annual end-of-season beano habitually seems to get lost in the post … but we digress.
So to summarise, apart from individual awards in a team sport voted for by footballers and individual awards in a team sport voted for by non-footballers, the Fiver has no time for individual awards in team sports, mainly because it gives us the chance to rehash that old, amusing and not entirely relevant Nick Cave line about not subjecting his muse “to the indignities of judgment and competition” upon being nominated for an MTV Award some years ago. “My muse is not a horse,” wrote Nick. “And I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel; this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!”
With a series of very long-winded speeches, a comedy turn from Jason Manford and the musical stylings of grime’s Lethal Bizzle to keep them entertained, the nation’s professional footballers hitched their collective muse to the tumbrel that is the PFA Awards last night, where in a confusing turn of events, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard was voted player of the year, but only second best young player. To add to the general air of bewilderment, he finished ahead of Harry Kane in the former category, but behind him in the latter. But like most things the Fiver gets itself in a dither over, it didn’t really matter.
Whether the muses of both players will spook and bolt in the face of these glittering prizes remains to be seen, but if either was concerned about such a turn of events, they hid it well. “I’m very happy,” said Hazard. “One day I want to be the best and what I did this season is play very well, Chelsea played very well. I don’t know if I deserve to win but it is good for me.” It should go without saying that Kane showed the same puppyish excitement at picking up the young player’s gong as he does about everything else. “It’s amazing,” said a player who is so enthusiastic that one suspects he fist-pumps in delight at the prospect of taking on household chores as mundane as putting out the bins. “It is amazing. It is a very proud moment for myself and my family - hopefully the first of many to come. I have got to keep working hard, but to be recognised by your fellow players is something special and it is a night I won’t forget. It is incredible, an incredible feeling.”
Other award winners on the night included Chelsea’s Ji So-yun and Arsenal’s Leah Williamson, who took the trophies for Women’s Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year respectively. There was a hat-tip too to the MLS-bound pair Stevie Mbe and Frank Lampard, who finally showed they can team up well together by showing admirable stoicism upon being handed really weird ceramic “merit” awards that future generations of their families will almost certainly be hiding in the attic or bringing to The Antiques Roadshow to get them valued for “insurance purposes”. The Fiver’s no pottery expert, but suspects they will almost certainly leave disappointed.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m just mortified by the whole thing. It was a daft prank. It wasn’t like I threw the pole out of anger or anything like that. That’s not what happened. I threw it for a laugh, stupid me trying to be funny, and unfortunately it’s anything but. It’s a total disaster” – St Mirren striker Steven Thompson, who once detached a nerve in his finger slicing an apple and suffered a major groin injury by falling off a banana boat while on holiday in Cyprus, has made a third entry into the random football injuries ledger: this time he has potentially ended the Scotland Under-21 midfielder John McGinn’s season by accidentally throwing a spiked pole through his leg.
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RECOMMENDED LISTENING
AC Jimbo is still off on World’s Strongest Man duties, so Max Rushden is joined on the latest Football Weekly by Barry Glendenning, John Ashdown and Caroline Barker.
BITS AND BOBS
Sir Oliver Popplewell, the former judge who conducted the inquiry into the Bradford City disaster, has described as “highly suspicious” Stafford Heginbotham’s history of major fires but insisted that a new investigation would clear the club’s then chairman of anything sinister.
Not content with having six Chelsea players and a former Chelsea player selected in the PFA team of the season, José Mourinho has suggested the entire XI should have been made up of his squad. “That [PFA] team is four defenders, Matic and only five to attack. So it’s a team without any balance,” he sniffed, presumably advocating the the 1-10-0-0 formations he picked to play Manchester United and Arsenal.
The Daniel Sturridge-shaped dent in the Liverpool’s physio bed is now so deep that the striker is unlikely to be able to clamber out of it for the rest of the season.
The day after Bayern Munich won the Bundesliga, tact’s Franz Beckenbauer has said Jürgen Klopp could succeed Pep Guardiola as the club’s coach one day.
Chris Smalling has said being trounced by Everton was like the front desk of a hotel phoning him up and saying it was time to get out of bed in a really, really loud voice. “This is a massive wake-up call for us,” he parped.
Eight months after joining Barcelona for nearly £15m, Thomas Vermaelen is finally sufficiently recovered from knack enough to play for the club.
After fans indulged in a spot of light window-breaking and firework-based unpleasantness at the weekend game between Torino and Juventus, the Juve manager, Max Allegri, has claimed that ‘only a madman’ would take their kids to a football stadium in Italy.
In a change to his usual routine, Lazio’s eagle mascot spent his pre-match swoop around the Stadio Olimpico getting attacked by a crow.
STILL WANT MORE?
Do you like lists? Do you like football? Because here is a list of 10 things about football.
New York Red Bulls are still undefeated in the MLS. We enlisted the help of our Golden Grahams, Parker and Ruthven, to explain how.
Italian football leaders should present a united front over crowd trouble, argues Paolo Bandini.
Despite being one of the most upbeat men IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, Jeremy Alexander is sad because Tranmere have been relegated to the Conference.
Today’s sport picture of the day is a belter.
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