Football League Awards

Phillips the good guy: sober and suited

2008-03-04T11:27:00Z

The FourFourTwo Football League Player of the Year, Kevin Phillips, is one of football's good guys: friendly, unassuming, modest and hard-working, always with time for fans and journalists alike.

He's had a good career, dotted by soaring highs – that thumper for Sunderland against Chelsea, winning the European Golden Boot, facing both Brazil and Argentina for England at Wembley – but seeing his smile as he picked up the trophy on Sunday night, you could tell it meant something to him.

And he deserved it, for his performances on the pitch and for his common decency.

Perhaps it has something to do with coming to the professional game late, plucked from non-league after a goal glut that followed a chance positional switch from right-back to centre-forward. Certainly other late starters – Les Ferdinand, Stuart Pearce, Ian Wright, Dave Kitson (who apparently pays for all of his old team-mates and their WAGs to go on holiday once a year) are similarly grounded.

A year ago, FourFourTwo received a phone call on the morning of the Football League Awards to say that Jason Koumas, the overall winner, coudn't make it to receive his trophy (not that he knew he'd won).

Cue panicked phone calls to ensure that someone from West Brom was there to collect it on his behalf.

That day, Phillips was at a barbecue with family and friends. It had begun at 10am with the first bottles opened not many minutes later. Phillips was dressed in jeans, trainers and a hooded top. If ever he had an excuse to say no, that was it. But he answered the call, selflessly doing a favour for his team-mate, his club and for us.

As he admitted in our video interview with him, 12 months ago, he never dreamed he'd be back on stage, collecting the award on his own behalf.

It's nice to see that sometimes the good guys get their rewards. Especially when they've put a suit on especially.

Players who don’t take profession or fans for granted

2008-03-03T12:28:00Z

So there we have it, the FourFourTwo Top 50 has been revealed (see full Top 50) and the general consensus on the night was that in Kevin Phillips, Jermaine Beckford and Keith Andrews, we had three very worthy winners.

But, like all lists and polls, the results are open to conjecture – and the debate among many of the 800-strong gathering at London’s Park Lane Hilton stretched into the early hours, long after our lauded trio had walked off into the night with their polished trophies.

Andy Gray second? Michael Kightly third? We heard cases being argued for James Beattie, Zheng Zhi, Jonathan Greening and the like, but at the end of the day, the results were there in black and white – the players and managers had their say, so too members of the media, but most importantly this was an awards ceremony for the fans, by the fans. It was your vote that counted most.

Granted, Gray hasn’t had the best of times since his switch to the Valley in January, but it would take a brave man to argue against his achievements at Burnley while Wolves – as Mick McCarthy admitted last night – look a shadow of their former selves in Kightly’s absence.

That there were a number of candidates vying for position among the Championship front runners is a reflection of the league itself this season. Phillips aside, consistency has been a problem for many players as it has many teams. Sorry, all teams.

But therein lies the beauty of the division; it does not boast the quality of the top-flight but neither do we have the annual procession that accompanies every Premier League season.

On the contrary, the Championship is a bookie’s nightmare, where top can – and quite often does – beat bottom. It’s the reason why attendances continue to boom and why we are unlikely to find out who's going up and who's heading down until the final kick of the final week of the season. And for the second tier read Leagues One and Two.

Yet it’s not just the football being served up that keep the fans coming back for more. Across all three divisions, fans feel a real affinity with their club and their players. The barriers that come have down between the fans and the Premier League superstars simply do not exist.

Be it Loftus Road yesterday lunchtime or the Racecourse Ground Saturday evening, fans wait for their heroes after the game, be it for an autograph or a chat, and they will not come away disappointed.

It’s the same from our side of the fence; the red tape that has to be cut, simply to speak to a top-flight player, does not exist in the Football League and it’s a refreshing environment to work in.

A former photographer colleague told me how he once shared a swimming pool with the Liverpool team and the European Cup after their triumph in Rome in 1984. Even a decade ago it was not uncommon to call a training ground – Melwood for instance – chat to Jamie Redknapp and then go up and see him the following day for an interview. It seems light years away.

Yet as the chasm between £60,000-a-week footballer and the rest of us continues to grow, drop down a level or two and the players are only too happy to co-operate.

Jermaine Beckford did not leave the Hilton until after midnight despite facing a three-hour drive up to Leeds and training this morning. Phillips, too, was driving back up to his Midlands home. Others who had attended on the night, including Peterborough’s Aaron McLean and West Brom’s Chris Brunt, attended without any guarantees of success.

These players are in touch with reality; they don’t take their profession or the fans for granted. And it’s the same for the 72 Football League clubs. If only their top-flight contemporaries could say the same…

FourFourTwo 50 Best Football League Players

2008-03-02T22:30:00Z

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is, FourFourTwo’s definitive rundown of the 50 Best Football League players.

This is our fourth annual Top 50 and, as ever, it’s been a fraught process, involving painstaking research, meticulous planning, copious amounts of booze and good, healthy argument.

Our thanks to every one of you who cast your votes, and to our team of experts who told us who they thought were the best players up and down the country.

Congratulations to Kevin Phillips, Jermaine Beckford, Keith Andrews and Michael Kightly who walked away with the individual prizes.

Congratulations, too, to the other 46 players who make up our list, all of you deserve a huge pat on the back for their endeavours this season.

To the other 1,000-plus players in the Football League – pull your fingers out! We hope to see you next year…

Football League Top 20 Gallery

Awards Night Gallery

FourFourTwo’s 50 Best Football League Players

1.    Kevin Phillips, West Brom: Football League Player of the Year
2.    Andy Gray, Charlton
3.    Michael Kightly, Wolves: Football League Young Player of the Year
4.    Jon Greening, West Brom
5.    Zheng Zhi, Charlton
6.    James Beattie, Sheffield United
7.    Clinton Morrison, Crystal Palace
8.    Dean Windass, Hull City
9.    Michael Mifsud, Coventry
10.    Zoltan Gera, West Brom
11.    Robert Koren, West Brom
12.    David Norris, Plymouth
13.    Adriano Basso, Bristol City
14.    Wes Hoolahan, Blackpool
15.    Ricardo Fuller, Stoke
16.    Brian Howard, Barnsley
17.    Akos Buzsaky, QPR
18.    Andy Keogh, Wolves
19.    Jay DeMerit, Watford
20.    Paul Robinson, West Brom
21.    Dan Shittu, Watford
22.    Wayne Hennessey, Wolves
23.    Ryan Shawcross, Stoke
24.    Jermaine Beckford, Leeds: League One Player of the Year
25.    Chris Iwelumo, Charlton
26.    Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Wolves
27.    Jonathan Walters, Ipswich
28.    Darius Henderson, Watford
29.    Liam Lawrence, Stoke
30.    Chris Dickson, Charlton
31.    Lee Trundle, Bristol City
32.    Jason Scotland, Swansea
33.    Lee Camp, QPR
34.    Marvin Elliott, Bristol City
35.    Peter Halmosi, Plymouth
36.    Joe Garner, Carlisle
37.    Andrew Surman, Southampton
38.    Keith Andrews, MK Dons: League Two Player of the Year
39.    Mark Hudson, Crystal Palace
40.    Jack Lester, Chesterfield
41.    Filipe Teixeira, West Brom
42.    Aaron McLean, Peterborough
43.    Joe Ledley, Cardiff City
44.    Kris Commons, Nottingham Forest
45.    Jason Puncheon, Barnet
46.    Casper Ankergren, Leeds
47.    Andy Robinson, Swansea
48.    Richie Wellens, Doncaster
49.    Anthony Gerrard, Walsall
50.    Derek Holmes, Rotherham

50 Best Football League Players, a 36-page magazine, is FREE with the new issue of FourFourTwo, on sale Monday March 3.
In it you’ll find:

• The reasoning behind our Top 50 selections
• Exclusive interviews with 15 of the Top 50 players
• Who Henry Winter, Jeff Stelling, Chris Kamara, Dave Jones, Darren Ferguson and many more voted for
• Our choice of the best player at each of the 44 clubs who didn’t get a player in our Top 50
• A look at what's happened to the stars of our previous Top 50s
• Bristol City boss Gary Johnson on what the Football League's taught him

Football League Top 50: the countdown begins

2008-02-29T14:56:00Z

Four years ago, FourFourTwo did something rather strange. Risky even.

Certainly there were those in positions of power within our offices who were heard to mutter darkly about the sanity of an editor who would even contemplate the idea of putting Football League players on the cover of our magazine. LET ALONE GO AHEAD WITH THIS MADNESS!

Six weeks later, when the sales figures started to filter through, those same people professed themselves delighted: "We always knew it would work," they announced with just a hint of Stalinist revisionism.

Four years on from our first '50 Best Football League Players', the FourFourTwo team are excitedly awaiting the fourth annual Football League Awards.

On Sunday, London's Hilton Park Lane will be awash with dodgy bleached mullets, oversized tie-knots and an excess of testosterone as the great and the good (not to mention the out-on-the-lash) of the Football League gather to celebrate the brilliance of life outside the Premier League.

What began as a simple cover story has grown into a sellout event, a must-attend event for players, managers and officials up and down the country.

Needless to say, we'll be there in force, chatting to the winners and losers, finding out all the gossip and maybe – just maybe – sampling the scandalously free alcohol on offer.

We're sorry we can't take you all with us, but check back here late on Sunday night and throughout Monday and Tuesday next week because we'll be bringing you the very best coverage of the Football League's big night.

Starting with the full rundown of the 50 Best Football League Players.