While packing up some of the mountains of crap that I have collected over the years this week, I came across three football trophies that I won as a teenager. Now, don’t start thinking that I was any good at the game, I wasn’t, as the nature of the football trophies will show.
Rather than winning awards for ‘player of the season’ or ‘top goal scorer’ (I actually never scored, well, at the right end anyway) I instead won the following three awards in the two seasons I played for my local team:
- Clubman of the Year
- Most Improved Player
- Most Improved Player
Let’s start with the ‘Clubman of the Year’ award first. This is the award you give to someone for, basically, turning up. I turned up every week, even for training, and didn’t cry off for any reason – therefore I got a trophy… nice.
This award was of course nowhere near as bad as winning the ‘Most Improved Player’ award… twice.
Just how bad do you have to be to win a trophy for improvement two years in a row? The level of the team was fairly low to begin with, and I was, in fairness, the worst player there when I started. We regularly lost games 6-0 (ironically in one of those games I scored an own goal and won man of the match) and we never went higher than second from bottom in the league.
We actually made it through to the semi-final of the cup in the second year, after receiving a bye in the first round and beating the worst team in the league in the quarter final – quite a cup-run. We lost the semi-final though, badly, to St Julians and a player who was reportedly the cousin of Nathan Blake (a former Cardiff City player).
Anyhow – I have football trophies, something every man should have from their youth. I just don’t have to tell everyone exactly what they’re for… assuming they don’t read this of course.
