Football Blogging Awards Winners – MOMS Best New Football Blog Winner
While MOMS was at a Bruce Springsteen concert in Hyde Park, we sent one of our writers Elliot to pick up the Best New Football Blog of the Year prize in our honour.
The night of the Football Blogging Awards
When my mate Niku pulls up in my driveway with his claret and blue scarf hanging out the window, it usually means match day. This weekend was dedicated to the Villa, as always, however this was different. We were off to pick up an award of behalf of My Old Man Said.
I told Nik I had no clue what to expect, despite gathering as much information about the Football Blogging Awards (FBA’s) as possible before the event. We pulled up in the official car park at 6.50pm. With doors opening at 7.00, there wasn’t a single car parked up. It didn’t look promising…
Now the pair of us are constantly road tripping round the country to follow our team, and we always manage to get us in bizarre situations – taking the 2 hour train to Villa Park on the final day of the season without a ticket; Niku’s dad starting a fight on the walk out of The Etihad after a heavy defeat (not for the first time), being chatted up by a woman now known as ‘The Villa GILF”’at Birmingham New Street… although I’d rather not talk about that one.
Walking up and down the A6 in smart, semi-formal attire, trying to kill time to avoid being embarrassingly early, turned out to be one of those situations. Half-an-hour later, we finally agreed to enter Stockport’s Masonic Guildhall.
It was particularly special to be representing MOMS because Stockport is my hometown. I grew up in a family of reds, with my dad owning a season ticket at Old Trafford for over 40 years now. I even spent a season as a ballboy there for the 07/08 campaign. Despite this, I’m claret and blue, all because of my first football game ever.
I was 6-years-old, and United had beaten Villa 2-1 at Old Trafford, with Beckham scoring a great winner. “If you want Beckham on your new shirt, you can have it,” my dad said in the car afterwards.
Apparently, I just took off the £30 shirt my dad had just bought me three hours previous, and said, I wanted an Aston Villa one. While David Beckham was my hero, like most kids my age at the time, there was something about him putting Villa to the sword so effortlessly with one swing of his right boot, that I didn’t like. 60,000+ fans celebrated but even at that young age, I wanted to be different, and cheer for another team. It just so happens Villa were that other team on the day.
I was nearly disowned, but luckily I survived it, and now, it appeared growing up a Manchurian Villain had finally reaped some rewards.
With the hall now filling up rapidly, we were welcomed with a glass of champagne and had our picture taken at the door. At first I thought we were out of our depth, as we sat down with a table to ourselves. We laid out our Villa scarves in an attempt to state our allegiance, but also make ourselves aware to fellow MOMS supporters. Soon enough we were joined at the table by a delightful couple, Greg and Louise, both passionate Villa fans, which made conversation easy. That’s the great thing about football, it brings people together.
When MOMS was announced the winner of “Best New Football Blog”, the four of us all went up together to collect the award. The winner of the first category of the night ‘Best Male Blog’, The 4th Official, was asked to say a few words after picking up his prize, after he took the microphone, muttered “cheers” to the crowd, and returned to his seat, I figured it was not a night for long speeches. I managed to avoid attempting a witty Chandler-esq joke under pressure, said a few words to the crowd and we returned to our table. A fine victory.
The rest of the winners seemed extremely worthy. Including ‘The Liver Bird’, the winner of the ‘Best Female Blog’, run by a Black Country girl, Kirsty, a talented and funny Liverpool fan, who accepted the award without a hint of Scouse in her accent – wins all round! Winners of Best Podcast, Chelsea Football Fancast, looked like a mob from the Italian Job sipping beer at their table, although they later on turned out to be a friendly bunch. The writer of Six Tame Sides who didn’t hold back one bit in his hilarious acceptance speech, pulling out two “wrong” pieces of paper from his pocket, the first a huge rolled out speech, the second his shopping list. There were a couple of video acceptance speeches, one of which was filmed all the way in South America for a foreign blog related to the Brazilian club Palmeiras!
Winners
Male – 4th Official
Female – The Liver Bird
Veteran – Six Tame Sides
Best New Football Blog – My Old Man Said
Podcast – Chelsea Football Fancast
Videos – The League of Ireland Interview Show
Club Specific – Anything Palmeiras
Comedy – FitbaThatba
After the award-giving finished, the drinks kept flowing, and the conversation heated up. Most notably, an encounter with one of the Chelsea Fancast lot who introduced himself to our table. It was him that in brought up the fact that Villa are a “bogie team” to the blues, and he recalled walking out of the infamous 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge a few years ago completely dumfounded. He spoke favourably about Shaun Maloney that day, and also about James Collins, who he obviously rates after the Welshman’s storming performances against his side in the past. He also seemed extremely relieved to have the “champions league monkey” off his back, rubbing in our face how we couldn’t sing “have you won the European Cup” at them anymore.
Other fans seemed to express good will towards Villa, while most feel sorry for us for our season under McLeish, there seems to be a consensus amongst neutrals that Martin O’Neill was a genius at our club. When the four of us gave other fans the facts and figures about our wage bill and transfer history under MON, people were quite taken aback.
All in all, the night was extremely successful; with a victory for MOMS under our belt, the proceedings for the event going to a good cause (The Justin Campaign) and a lot of free booze consumed. After declining an invitation to the after party, we advised our visiting friends on the best places to go round Manchester, had a couple more pictures taken, and left feeling like A-list celebrities. It is my pleasure to represent MOMS, both at the awards, and now on the keyboard.
Hopefully, there are plenty more claret and blue victories to come once the new season kicks off.
Congrats to all the fellow Football Blogging Awards Winners!
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