OTP End of Season Awards
Baftas, Oscars, Nobel, OTPs
OTP Player of the Season – Vincent Kompany
At OTP we are a massive fan of the friendly Belgian. The mainstay of a defence that kept the most clean sheets in the Premier League, a man mountain, and younger than Wayne Rooney. Named in the PFA Team of the Year and voted Manchester City’s Player of the Year by the supporters.
Kompany was helped to his award by his quote following the FA Cup final, making a mockery of the ‘like y’know’ vocabulary of English footballers: “We have laid the foundations. Now we want to build a house on it.” Hair on the back of the neck stuff.
OTP Young Player of the season – Jack Wilshere
I offer no apologies at all for overlooking Gareth Bale, because I think he has already been weakened by the burden of the mutual masturbation of our tabloid newspapers.
Wilshere has had a fabulous season, playing in 49 games for Arsenal. I do think that he should have gone to the U21 European Championships, but that’s a different matter. Arsenal will hope that Wilshere forms the spine of Arsenal’s next decade.
The Javier Saviola award for underachievement – Joe Cole
I have detailed the quote previously, but it’s good enough to repeat:
“Messi can do some amazing things, but anything he can do Joe can do as well, if not better. He used to shock us in training by doing footy tricks with a golf ball that most players can’t even do with a football. I really fancy Joe for the [player of the year] award this season.”
(Steven Gerrard, August 2010)
Fairly safe to assume that Cole hasn’t transferred his skills in training onto the pitch.
The Peter Crouch with Abbey Clancy award for over-achievement – DJ Campbell
As a Forest fan, an on-loan Leicester player putting us out of the playoffs last season with his first ever career hat-trick smarted just a touch. But surely I could be safe in the knowledge that he would struggle in the Premier League?
Well, no. He scored more league goals than Wayne Rooney. In fact, he scored more league goals than any Englishman other than Darren Bent. Not bad for a player who, before this season, had only once scored more than ten goals in a season in any division of the Football League.
The Robbie Savage award for self-promotion – Sam Allardyce
It is a tribute to the strength of the category that Nicklas Bendtner managed to avoid scooping the gong, but whereas the Dane took the biscuit, Fat Sam Allardyce took the piss:
“I’m not suited to Bolton or Blackburn, I would be more suited to Internazionale or Real Madrid. It wouldn’t be a problem to me to go and manage those clubs because I would win the Double or the league every time.
“Give me Manchester United or Chelsea and I would do the same, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not where I’m suited to, it’s just where I’ve been for most of the time. It’s not a problem to take me into the higher reaches of the Champions League or Premier League and would make my job a lot easier in winning it.”
The Jason Lee award for worst haircut – Alex Song
A picture tells a thousand words:
The Wayne Rooney award for playing away – Ryan Giggs
We’re allowed to name him now you see. And it was damn hard work waiting.
The Mark Lawrenson award for awful act of punditry – Richard Keys
An absolute stone-waller:
Keys: ‘Did you smash it?’
Redknapp: ‘I used to go out with her.’
Keys: ‘Mind you, that’s a stupid question. If you were anywhere near it you’d definitely smash it, you’d have gone round there any night of the week and found Redknapp hanging out the back of it.’
Sky’s gain is Talksport’s loss it seems. And everyone felt a little bit sick thinking about those hairy hands.
The Stefan Postma award for weirdest footballing story – Luis Moreno
Although it doesn’t win our award, a special mention must go to Ashley Cole, who casually shot a man. Ashley. Cole. Shot. A. Man.
However as ever we go to South America for the comedy, where Colombian Luis Moreno kicked an owl in the face that had already been hit by a ball. To tie the story up nicely, Moreno had chants of murderer directed at him, received death threats, got a community service order at a zoo and then kicked another footballer in the ribs less than a month later.
The sadly missed award – Malcolm Allison
Easy one for us here. RIP Malcolm Allison. One of the original football playboys, Allison won the league, both cups and Cup Winners Cup with Manchester City, but it was his off the field antics that I love him for. Probably the best story is that when he was manager of Crystal Palace, he was charged by the FA after having photos taken of himself in the team bath with a porn star. Epic stuff.
