Our Players of the Year - Well done all!!
We split the Player of the Year Awards this year on the advice of someone in another team as the “blokes always get all the glory”. Not in our team they don’t! But we thought we’d recognise as many people as possible anyway.
Male player of the year – Gareth Barton
I remember Dennis Coffey the secretary general of the Federation of International Touch (and one of our award runners-up) saying that Soccer players found the conversion to Touch easiest and he might have had Gareth in mind when he said this. Mr Barton has only made his tournament debut in August at the Bath NTS but won our player of the tournament and continued to score crucial scores in the Warwick tournament and NTS Finals.
As someone wrote when voting for someone else “Getting to the 5m is one thing, knowing what to do when you get there is the key” and Gareth is one of a couple of players who have a ruddy clue what to do on line attack.
Female Player of the year – Catherine Roberts
I was really pleased that Catherine won this one, she always seems to be the second best player at tournaments and so never quite wins the player of the tournament award, Catherine is our only real “steady and consistent” player as everyone else seems to lurch wildly from ace to absolutely blinkin awful .
She was also magnificent in Bath despite suffering from the raging trots. Well done Cath!
Most improved bloke – Tom Powlay
When he first turned up at the club I didn’t think Tom was going to amount to much, Tom has been playing Union for years and seemed to only come along to support his friend. Within three weeks Tom was playing like a natural and had made himself an integral part of the team, showing he may be rich beyond our wildest dreams but he’s a social chameleon who can lower himself to converse with us proletariat.
He really can’t pass though, whether it’s a 1m pop or a 40m long ball, the technique and velocity are exactly the same; bastard hard and aimed at your feet.
Most Improved Female – Sarah Jean Kelly.
Did someone say “hotly contested”? No? This award most definitely was, any of the Duffness, Prebs or Sarah Jean could have walked away with this one but a couple of late votes tipped it in Sarahs Direction.
Sarah has got serious Gas, the best planting technique on the team and an eye for a gap. At the start of the season I thought she’d make a good wing, by the end of it she was an NTS standard link. Sarah Jean is also epically grumpy off the field. Which I like.
Top scorer
Me! Again! You’ll note I didn’t win an award, it’s a conspiracy.
The Gareth Hill Award for doing stuff you don’t want to do in the name of Touch
Although Catherine and Jo put in sterling work to sort out our magnificent Purple Kit and Clare took up refereeing (and even ran a Monday night when Gareth and I were away) this award goes to Emily Kelly, who despite selfishly having a knee operation that meant she couldn’t play, still turned up at tournaments and training to keep us in Haribo Starmix and be the official photographer of me looking pasty and fat in a vest.
A Monday Night, probably.
Monday Night Player of The Year
Alasdair Teager – who only occasionally rocked up but made everyone on his team look better. He got the skills that pay the bills and is one of those annoying people who make awesome play look effortless as well as being a really nice bloke. I take comfort in his baldness, though when I’m a slaphead I’ll still be useless.
Hypochondriac of the year - Gareth Hill.
Nobody doubts that Gareth is carrying injuries but just read his Facebook updates to see how much he complains about them BEFORE he plays. This year he’s taken Pre-Tournament Psychosomatic Hypochondria to new levels. None of us even know what ITBS is, but he swears it’s a proper injury.
Photo of the Year
As a happily married man I can’t see where the attraction is in this photo. Its proved very popular though.
I don't know either
Hero of the Year
This is the award that is given to someone who doesn’t live in the area who has still gone out of their way to make a contribution to our season. Special mention needs to be made of Dennis Coffey who took time out from his hectic world cup schedule to run a session for us and Iwan Davies who starred for us in Bath and Warwick.
But the winner by a landslide is Kevin Hobbs who has braved the A483 all the way from Cardiff on numerous occasions to train our players, coached and referees. He also does a load of unseen work answering tons of questions by e-mail from me. Hobbs we all salute you!
Worst Irish Accent of the Year
Eileen “tarmac your drive?” Duff. At least people can work out what I’m trying to say when I attempt one.
Feel free to add your own!
